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THE BIBLE
HELL
The
words rendered hell in the bible, Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna, shown to
denote a state of temporal duration. All the texts containing the word examined and explained
in harmony with the doctrine of universal salvation.* By J.W. Hanson, D.D. PREFACE
The brief excursus on the word
"Hell" contained in this volume, aims to treat the subject in a
popular style, and at the same time to present all the important facts, so
fully and comprehensively that any reader can obtain in a few pages a
birds-eye-view of "The Bible Hell." The author ventures to hope that
any one who will read candidly, not permitting the bias of an erroneous
education to warp his judgment, will not fail to agree with the conclusions of
this book, --that the doctrine of unending sin and woe finds no support in the
Bible teachings concerning Hell. THE BIBLE HELL
Does the Bible teach the idea
commonly held among Christians concerning Hell? Does the Hell of the Bible
denote a place of torment, or a condition of suffering without end, to begin at
death? What is the Hell of the Bible? Manifestly the only way to arrive at the
correct answer is to trace the words translated Hell from the beginning to the
end of the Bible, and by their connections ascertain exactly what the divine
Word teaches on this important subject. It seems incredible that a wise and
benevolent God should have created or permitted any kind of an endless hell in
his universe. Has he done so? Do the Scripture teachings concerning Hell stain
the character of God and clothe human destiny with an impenetrable pall of
darkness, by revealing a state or place of endless torment? Or do they explain
its existence, and relieve God's character, and dispel all the darkness of
misbelief, by teaching that it exists as a means to a good end? It is our
belief that the Bible Hell is not the heathen, nor the "orthodox"
hell, but is one that is doomed to pass away when its purpose shall have been
accomplished, in the reformation of those for whose welfare a good God ordained
it.
THE ENGLISH WORD HELL The English word Hell grew into
its present meaning. Horne Tooke says that hell, heel, hill, hole, whole, hall,
hull, halt and hold are all from the same root. "Hell, any place, or some
place covered over. Heel, that part of the foot, which is covered by the leg.
Hill, any heap of earth, or stone, etc., by which the plain or level surface of
the earth is covered. Hale, i.e., healed or whole. Whole, the same as hale,
i.e., covered. It was formerly written whole, without the w, as a wound or sore
is healed, or whole, that is, covered over by the skin, which manner of
expression will not seem extraordinary if we consider our use of the word
recover. Hall, a covered building, where persons assemble, or where goods are
protected from the weather. Hull, of a nut, etc. That by which a nut is
covered. Hole, some place covered over. 'You shall seek for holes to hide your
heads in.' Holt, holed, hol'd holt. A rising ground or knoll covered with
trees. Hold, as the hold of a ship, in which things are covered, or the covered
part of a ship." The word was first applied to
the grave by our German and English ancestors, and as superstition came to
regard the grave as an entrance to a world of torment, Hell at length became
the word used to denote an imaginary realm of fiery woe. Dr. Adam Clarke says: "The
word Hell, used in the common translation, conveys now an improper meaning of
the original word; because Hell is only used to signify the place of the
damned. But as the word Hell comes from the Anglo-Saxon helan, to cover, or
hide, henee the tiling or slating of a house is called, in some parts of
England (particularly Cornwall), heling, to this day, and the corers of books
(in Lancashire), by the same name, so the literal import of the original word
Hades was formerly well expressed by it."---Com. in loc.
FOUR WORDS TRANSLATED HELL In the Bible four words are
translated Hell: the Hebrew word Sheol, in the original Old testament; its
equivalent, the Greek word Hadees, in the Septuagint; and in the New Testament,
Hadees, Gehenna and Tartarus.
SHEOL AND HADEES The Hebrew Old Testament, some
three hundred years before the Christian era, was translated into Greek, but of
the sixty-four instances where Sheol occurs in the Hebrew, it is rendered
Hadees in the Greek sixty times, so that either word is the equivalent of the
other. But neither of these words is ever used in the Bible to signify
punishment after death, nor should the word Hell ever be used as the rendering
of Sheol or Hadees for neither word denotes post-mortem torment. According to
the Old Testament the words Sheol, Hadees primarily signify only the place, or
state of the dead. The character of those who departed thither did not affect
their situation in Sheol, for all went into the same state. The word cannot be
translated by the term Hell, for that would make Jacob expect to go to a place
of torment, and prove that the Savior of the world, David, Jonah, etc., were
once sufferers in the prison-house of the damned. In every instance in the Old
Testament, the word grave might be substituted for the term hell, either in a
literal or figurative sense. The word being a proper name should always have
been left untranslated. Had it been carried into the Greek Septuagint, and
thence into the English, untranslated, Sheol, a world of misconception would
have been avoided, for when it is rendered Hadees, all the materialism of the
heathen mythology is suggested to the mind, and when rendered Hell, the
medieval monstrosities of a Christianity corrupted by heathen adulterations is
suggested. Had the word been permitted to travel untranslated, no one would
give to it the meaning now so often applied to it. Sheol, primarily, literally,
the grave, or death, secondarily and figuratively the political, social, moral
or spiritual consequences of wickedness in the present world, is the precise
force of the term, wherever found. Sheol occurs exactly sixty-four
times and is translated hell thirty-two times, pit three times, and grave
twenty-nine times. Dr. George Campbell, a celebrated critic, says that
"Sheol signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard to the
goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery." FIVE OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS CLAIMED Professor Stuart (orthodox
Congregational) only dares claim five out of the sixty-four passages as
affording any proof that the word means a place of punishment after death.
"These," he says, "may designate the future world of woe."
"They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to Sheol."
"The wicked shall be turned into Sheol, and all the nations that forget
God." "Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of Sheol."
"But he knoweth that the ghosts are there, and that her guests are in the
depths of Sheol." "Thou shalt beat him with a rod, and shall deliver
his soul from Sheol. He observes: "The meaning will be a good one, if we
suppose Sheol to designate future punishment." "I concede, to
interpret all the texts which exhibit Sheol as having reference merely to the
grave, is possible; and therefore it is possible to interpret" them
"as designating a death violent and premature, inflicted by the hand of
Heaven." An examination shows that these
five passages agree with the rest in their meaning: Ps. 9:17: "The wicked shall
be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." The wicked here
are "the heathen," "mine enemies," i.e.; they are not
individuals, but "the nations that forget God," that is, neighboring
nations, the heathen. They will be turned into Sheol, death, die as nations,
for their wickedness. Individual sinners are not meant. Professor Alexander, of the
Theological Seminary, Princeton, thus presents the correct translation of Ps.
9:17, the only passage containing the word usually quoted from the Old
Testament to convey the idea of post-mortem punishment. "The wicked shall
turn back, even to hell, to death or to the grave, all nations forgetful of
God. The enemies of God and of his people shall not only be thwarted and
repulsed, but driven to destruction, and that not merely individuals, but
nations." Dr. Allen, of Bowdoin College says of this text: "The
punishment expressed in this passage is cutting off from life, destroying from
the earth by some special judgment, and removing to the invisible state of the
dead. The Hebrew term translated hell in the text does not seem to mean, with
any certainty, anything more than the state of the dead in their deep
abode." Professor Stuart: "It means a violent and premature death
inflicted by the hand of heaven." Job 21:13: "They spend their days
in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave." It would seem that no one could
claim this text as a threat of after-death punishment. It is a mere declaration
of sudden death. This is evident when we remember that it was uttered to a
people who, according to all authorities, believed in no punishment after
death. Proverbs 5: 5: "her feet go
down to death; her steps take hold on hell." This language, making death
and Sheol parallel, announces that the strange woman walks in paths of swift
and inevitable sorrow and death. And so does Prov. 9:18: "But he knoweth
not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of
hell." Sheol is here used as a figure of emblem of the horrible condition
and fate of those who follow the ways of sin. They are dead while they live.
They are already in Sheol or the kingdom of death. Proverbs 23: 13-14:
"Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the
rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his
soul from hell." Sheol is here used as the grave, to denote the death that
rebellious children experience early, or it may mean that moral condition of the
soul which Sheol, the realm of death signifies. But in no case is it supposable
that it means a place or condition of after-death punishment in which, as all
scholars agree, Solomon was not a believer. MEANING OF THE WORD The real meaning of the word Stuart concedes to be the under-world, the religion of the dead, the grave, the sepulcher, the region of ghosts or departed spirits. (Ex. Ess.): "It was considered as a vast and wide dominion or region, of which the grave seems to have been as it were only a part or a kind of entrance-way. It appears to have been regarded as extending deep down into the earth, even to its lowest abysses. . . . . In this boundless region lived and moved at times, the names of departed friends." But these five passages teach no
such doctrine as he thinks they may teach. The unrighteous possessor of wealth
goes down to death; the nations that forget God are destroyed as nations; lewd
women's steps lead downward to death; their guests are on the downward road;
the rod that wisely corrects the unruly child, saves him from the destruction
of sin. There is no hint of an endless hell, nor of a post-mortem hell in these
passages, and if not in these five then it is conceded it is in no passage
containing the word. That the Hebrew Sheol never
designates a place of punishment in a future state of existence, we have the
testimony of the most learned of scholars, even among the so-called orthodox.
We quote the testimony of a few: Rev. Dr. Whitby: "Sheol
throughout the Old Testament, signifies not a place of punishment for the souls
of bad men only, but the grave, or place of death." Dr Chapman:
"Sheol, in itself considered has no connection with future
punishment." Dr. Allen: "The term Sheol itself, does not seem to mean
anything more than the state of the dead in their dark abode." Dr.
Firbairn, of the College of Glasgow: "Beyond doubt, Sheol, like Hades, was
regarded as the abode after death, alike of the good and the bad." Edward
Leigh, who says Horne's, "Introduction," was "one of the most
learned understanding of the original languages of the Scriptures,"
observes that "all learned Hebrew scholars know the Hebrews have no proper
word for hell, as we take hell." Prof. Stuart: "There can be
no reasonable doubt that Sheol does most generally mean the underworld, the
grave or sepulchre, the world of the dead. It is very clear that there are many
passages where no other meaning can reasonably be assigned to it. Accordingly,
our English translators have rendered the word Sheol grave in thirty instances
out of the whole sixty-four instances in which it occurs." Dr. Thayer in his Theology of
Universalism quotes as follows: Dr. Whitby says that Hell "throughout the
Old Testament signifies the grave only or the place of death." Archbishop
Whately: "As for a future state of retribution in another world, Moses
said nothing to the Israelites about that." Milman says that Moses
"maintains a profound silence on the rewards and punishments of another
life." Bishop Warburton testifies that, "In the Jewish Republic, both
the rewards and punishments promised by Heaven were temporal only-such as
health, long life, peace, plenty and dominion, etc., diseases, premature death,
war, famine, want, subjections, captivity, etc. And in no one place of the
Mosaic Institutes is there the least mention, or any intelligible hint, of the
rewards and punishments of another life." Paley declares that the Mosaic
dispensation "dealt in temporal rewards and punishments. The blessings
consisted altogether of worldly benefits, and the curses of worldly
punishments. Prof. Mayer says, that "the rewards promised the righteous,
and the punishments threatened the wicked, are such only as are awarded in the
present state of being." Jahn, whose work is the textbook of the Andover
Theological Seminary, says, "We have no authority, therefore, decidedly to
say, that any other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue good
and avoid evil, than those which were derived from the rewards and punishments
of this life." To the same important fact testify Prof. Wines, Bush,
Arnauld, and other distinguished theologians and scholars. "All learned
Hebrew scholars know that the Hebrews have no word proper for hell, as we take
hell." [Footnote: Encyc. Britan., vol.
1. Dis. 3 Whateley's "Peculiarities of the Christian Religion," p.44,
2d edition, and his "Scripture Revelations of a Future State," pp.
18, 19, American edition. MILMAN'S "Hist. of Jews," vol. 1, 117.
"Divine Legation," vol. 3, pp. 1, 2 & c. 10th London edition.
PALEY'S works, vol. 5. p. 110, Sermon 13. Jahn's "Archaeology," 324.
Lee, in his "Eschatology," says: "It should be remembered that
the rewards and punishments of the Mosaic Institutes were exclusively temporal.
Not an allusion is found, in the case of either individuals or communities, in
which reference is made to the good or evil of a future state as motive to
obedience."] Dr. Muenscher, author of a
Dogmatic History in German, says: "The souls or shades of the dead wander
in Sheol, the realm or kingdom of death, an abode deep under the earth. Thither
go all men, without distinction, and hope for no return. There ceases all pain
and anguish; there reigns an unbroken silence; there all is powerless and
still; and even the praise of God is heard no more." Von Coelln: "Sheol
itself is described as the house appointed for all living, which receives into
its bosom all mankind, without distinction of rank, wealth or moral character.
It is only in the mode of death, and not in the condition after death, that the
good are distinguished above the evil. The just, for instance, die in peace,
and are gently borne away before the evil comes; while a bitter death breaks
the wicked like as a tree."
SHEOL RENDERED GRAVE Consult the passages in which
the word is rendered grave, and substitute the original word Sheol, and it will
be seen that the meaning is far better preserved: Gen. 37: 34-35: "And
Jacob rent his clothes, and put sack-cloth upon his loins, and mourned for his
son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him;
but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave
unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him." It was not into the
literal grave, but into the realm of the dead, where Jacob supposed his son to have
gone, into which he wished to go, namely, to Sheol. Gen. 42:38 and 44: 31, are to
the same purport: "And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his
brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the
which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave." "It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not
with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of
thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave." The literal grave may be
meant here, but had Sheol remained untranslated, any reader would have
understood the sense intended. I Samuel 2: 6: "The Lord
killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth
up." I Kings 2: 6-9: "Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let
not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. Now therefore hold him not
guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto
him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood." Job 7: 9:
"As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the
grave shall come up no more." Job 14: 13: "Oh that thou wouldest hide
me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past,
that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me." Of Korah and his company, it is
said, "They and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the
pit, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the
congregation."-Num. 16: 33. Job 17: 13-14: "If I wait, the grave is
mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou
art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister." Job 21:
13: "They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the
grave." Job 33: 21-22: "His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be
seen: and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near
unto the grave, and his lie to the destroyers." Ps. 6: 5: "In the
grave who shall give thee thanks?" Ps. 30: 3: "O Lord, thou hast
brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not
go down to the pit." Ps. 88: 3: "For my soul is full of troubles, and
my soul draweth nigh to the grave." Prov. 1: 12: "Let us swallow them
up alive as the grave." Ps. 20: 3: "In the grave who shall give thee
thanks?" Ps. 141: 7: "Our bones are scattered at the grave's
mouth." Song Sol. 8: 6: "Jealousy is cruel as the grave." Ecc.
9: 10: "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the
grave, whither thou goest." Isa. 38: 18: "For the grave cannot praise
thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope
for thy truth." Hos. 14: 14: "I will ransom them from the power of
the grave-O grave, I will be thy destruction." Job 33: 22: "His soul (man's)
draweth near unto the grave." I Kings 2: 9: "But his hoar head bring
thou down to the grave with blood." Job 24: 19: "Drought and heat
consume the snow-waters; so doth the grave those which have sinned." Psalm
6: 5: "For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who
shall give thee thanks." Psalm 31: 17: "Let the wicked be ashamed,
and let them be silent in the grave." Psalm 89: 48: "What man is he
that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand
of the grave? Prov. 30:16: "The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that
is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not. It is enough." Isa.
14: 11: "Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy
viols; the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee." On Isa.
38: 18: "For the Grave (Sheol, Hadees) cannot praise thee; death cannot
celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth."
Prof. Stuart says: "I regard the simple meaning of this controverted place
(and of others like it, e.g., Ps. 6: 5; 30: 9; 88: 11; 115: 7; Comp. 118: 17)
as being this namely, "The dead can no more give thanks to God nor
celebrate his praise among the living on earth, etc." And he properly
observes (pp. 113-14): "It is to be regretted that our English translation
has given occasion to the remark that those who made it have intended to impose
on their readers in any case a sense different from that of the original
Hebrew. The inconstancy with which they have rendered the word Sheol even in cases
of the same nature, must obviously afford some apparent ground for this
objection against their version of it." Why the word should have been
rendered grave and pit in the foregoing passages, and hell in the rest, cannot
be explained. Why it is not grave or hell, or better still Sheol or Hadees in
all cases, no one can explain, for there is no valid reason.
SHEOL RENDERED HELL The first time the word is found
translated Hell in the Bible is in Deut. 32: 22-26: "For a fire is kindled
in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell, Sheol-Hadees, and shall
consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the
mountains. I will heap mishiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with
bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the
poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without and terror within, shall
destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of
gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the
remembrance of them to cease from among men." Thus the lowest Hell is on
earth, and its torments consist in such pains as are only possible in this
life: "hunger," "the teeth of beasts," "the poison of
serpents," "the sword," etc.; and not only are real offenders to
suffer them, but even "sucklings" are to be involved in the calamity.
If endless torment is denoted by the word, infant damnation follows, for into
this hell "the suckling and the man of gray hairs go," side by side.
The scattering and destruction of the Israelites, in this world, is the meaning
of fire in the lowest hell, as any reader can see by carefully consulting the
chapter containing this first instance of the use of the word. Similar to this are the
teachings wherever the word occurs in the Old Testament: "For thou wilt
not leave my soul in Hell nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption."
Ps. 16:10. Here "corruption" is placed parallel with Sheol, or death. "Though they dig into Hell,
thence shall my hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I
bring them down." Amos 9:2. "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art
there; if I make my bed in Hell, behold, thou art there." Ps. 139: 8.
"It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Hell; what canst
thou know." Job 11:8 The sky and the depths of the earth are here placed
in opposition, to represent height and depth. A place of torment after death
was never thought of by any of those who use the word in the Old Testament. If the word means a place of
endless punishment, then David was a monster. Ps. 55:15: "Let death seize
upon them, and let them go down quick into Sheol-Hadees!" Job desired to go there. 14:13:
"Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in Sheol-Hadees. Hezekiah expected to go
there.-Isa 38:10: "I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the
gates of Sheol-Hadees. Korah, Dathan and Abiram
(Numbers 16: 30-33) not only went there "but their houses, and goods, and
all that they owned," "and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed
them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all
their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into
Sheol-Hadees, and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the
congregation." It is in the dust-Job 17: 16: "They shall go down to
the bars of Sheol-Hadees, when our rest together is in the dust." It has a mouth, is in fact the
grave, see Ps. 141: 7: "Our bones are scattered at Sheol's-Hadees' mouth ,
as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth." It has gray hairs, Gen. 42: 38:
"And he said, my son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead,
and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in which ye go, then
shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol-Hadees." The overthrow of the King of
Babylon is called Hell.-Isa. 14: 9-15, 22-23: "Hell, Sheol-Hadees, from
beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead
for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their
thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee,
art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is
brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is spread under
thee, and the worms cover thee. For I will rise up against them saith the Lord
of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew,
saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of
water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of
hosts." All this imagery demonstrates temporal calamity, a national
overthrow as the signification of the word Hell. The captivity of the Jews is called
Hell.-Isa. 5: 13-14: "Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because
they have no knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their
multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore Sheol- Hadees, hath enlarged herself,
and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and
their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. Temporal overthrow is called
Hell.-Ps. 49: 14: "Likesheep they are laid in the grave, death shall feed
on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and
their beauty shall consume in Sheol-Hadees, from their dwelling." Ezek.
32: 26-27: "And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the
uncircumcised, which are gone down to Sheol-Hadees with their weapons of war,
and they have laid their swords under their heads." Men are in hell with
their swords under their heads. This cannot mean a state of conscious
suffering. Hell is to be destroyed. Hos.
13: 14: "Oh grave I will be thy destruction." I Cor. 15: 55: "Oh
grave I will be thy destruction." Rev. 20: 13,14: "And death and Hell
delivered up the dead which were in them, and death and Hell were cast into the
lake of fire." Sheol is precisely the same word
as Saul. If it meant Hell, would any Hebrew parent have called his child Sheol?
Think of calling a boy Sheol (Hell)! Nowhere in the Old Testament
does the word Sheol, or its Greek equivalent, Hadees, ever denote a place or
condition of suffering after death; it either means literal death or temporal
calamity. This is clear as we consult the usage. Hence David, after having been
in Hell was delivered from it: Ps. 18: 5; 30: 3: "O Lord, thou hast
brought up my soul from the grave; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not
go down to the pit. When the waves of death compassed me the floods of ungodly
men made me afraid." "The sorrows of Hell, Sheol-Hadees compassed me
about; the snares of death prevented me," so that there is escape from
Hell." Jonah was in a fish only seventy
hours, and declared he was in hell forever. He escaped from Hell. Jon. 2: 2, 6:
"Out of the belly of Hell (Sheol-Hadees) cried I, and thou heardest my
voice, earth with her bars was about me forever." Even an eternal Hell
lasted but three days. It is a place where God is and
therefore must be an instrumentality of mercy. Ps. 139: 8: "If I make my
bed In Hell (Sheol-Hadees), behold thou art there." Men having gone into it are
redeemed from it. I Sam. 2: 6: "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he
bringeth down to the grave (Sheol-Hadees) and bringeth up." Jacob wished to go there.-Gen.
37: 35: "I will go down into the grave Hades unto my son mourning."
ALL THE SHEOL TEXTS Besides the passages already
given, we now record all the other places in which the word Sheol-Hadees,
occurs. It is translated Hell in the following passages: Ps. 86: 13: "Thou
hast delivered my soul from the lowest Hell." Ps. 156: 3: "The pains
of Hell got hold on me: I found trouble and sorrow." Prov. 15: 11, 24:
"Hell and destruction are before the Lord. The way of life is above to the
wise, that he may depart from Hell beneath." Prov. 23: 14: "Thou
shalt beat him, and deliver his soul from Hell." Prov. 27: 20: "Hell
and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied."
Isa. 28: 15, 18: "Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with
death, and with Hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall
pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and
under falsehood have we hid ourselves. And your covenant with death shall be
disannulled, and your agreement with Hell shall not stand; when the overflowing
scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." Isaiah
57: 9: "Thou didst debase thyself even unto hell." Ezek. 31: 16-17:
"I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him
down to Hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden,
the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the
nether parts of the earth. They also went down into Hell with him, unto them
that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his
shadow in the midst of the heathen." Jonah says, "Out of the belly of
Hell cried I, and thou heardest me."-Jon. 2: 2. Hab. 2: 5: "Yea, also
because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man neither keepeth at home,
who enlargeth his desire as Hell and is as death, and cannot be
satisfied." We believe we have recorded
every passage in which the word Sheol-Hadees occurs. Suppose the original word
stood, and we read Sheol or Hadees in all the passages instead of Hell, would
any unbiassed reader regard the word as conveying the idea of a place or state
of endless torment after death, such as the English word Hell is so generally
supposed to denote? Such a doctrine was never held by the ancient Jews, until
after the Babylonish captivity, during which they acquired it of the heathen.
All scholars agree that Moses never taught it, and that it is not contained in
the Old Testament. Thus not one of the sixty-four
passages containing the only word rendered Hell in the entire Old Testament,
teaches any such thought as is commonly supposed to be contained in the English
word Hell. It should have stood the proper name of the realm of death, Sheol. Men in the Bible are said to be
in hell, Sheol-Hadees, and in "The lowest hell," while on earth.
Deut. 32: 22; Jon. 2: 2; Rev. 6: 8. Men have been in Hell,
Sheol-Hadees, and yet have escaped from it. Ps. 18: 5, 6; II Sam. ; Jon 2: 2;
Ps. 116: 3; 86: 12-13. Ps. 30: 3; Rev. 20: 13. God delivers men from Hell,
Sheol-Hadees. I Sam. 2: 6. All men are to go there. No one
can escape the Bible Hell, Sheol-Hadees. Ps. 89: 48. There can be no evil there for
there is no kind of work there. Eccl. 9: 10. Christ's soul was said to be in
Hell, Sheol-Hadees. Acts 2: 27-28. No one in the Bible ever speaks
of Hell, Sheol-Hadees as a place of punishment after death. It is a way of escape from
punishment. Amos 9: 2. The inhabitants of Hell,
Sheol-Hadees are eaten of worms, vanish and are consumed away. Job 7: 9, 21;
Ps. 49: 14. Hell, Sheol-Hadees is a place of
rest. Job 17: 16. It is a realm of
unconsciousness. Ps. 6: 5; Is. 38: 18; Eccl. 9: 10. All men will be delivered from
this Hell. Hos. 13: 14. Hell, Sheol-Hadees, will be
destroyed. Hos. 13: 14; I Cor. 15: 55; Rev. 20: 14. At the time these declarations
were made, and universally accepted by the Hebrews, the surrounding nations all
held entirely different doctrines. Egypt, Greece, Rome, taught that after death
there is a fate in store for the wicked that exactly resembles that taught by
so-called orthodox Christians. But the entire Old testament is utterly silent
on the subject, teaching nothing of the sort as the sixty-four passages we have
quoted show and as the critics of all churches admit. And yet "Moses was
learned in all the wisdom in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7: 22)
who believed in a world of torment after death. If Moses knew all about this
Egyptian doctrine, and did not teach it to his followers, what is the
unavoidable inference?
TESTIMONY OF SCHOLARS Dr. Strong says, that not only
Moses, but "every Israelite who came out of Egypt, must have been fully
acquainted with the universally recognized doctrine of future rewards and
punishments." And yet Moses is utterly silent on the subject. Dr. Thayer remarks: "Is it
possible to imagine a more conclusive proof against the divine origin of the
doctrine? If he had believed it to be of God, if he had believed in endless
torments as the doom of the wicked after death, and had received this as a
revelation from heaven, could he have passed it over in silence? Would he have
dared to conceal it, or treat so terrible a subject with such marked contempt?
And what motive could he have had for doing this? I cannot conceive of a more
striking evidence of the fact that the doctrine is not of God. He knew whence
the monstrous dogma came, and he had seen enough of Egypt already, and would
have no more of her cruel superstitions; and so he casts this out, with her
abominable idolatries, as false and unclean things." So that while the Old Testament
talks of ten thousand things of small importance, it has not a syllable nor a
whisper of what ought to have been told first of all and most of all and
continually. No one is said to have gone to such a place as is now denoted by
the word Hell, or to be going to it, or saved from it, or exposed to it. To say
that the Hell taught by partialist Christians existed before Christ, is to
accuse God of having permitted his children for four thousand years to tumble
into it by millions, without a word of warning from him. Earth was a flowery
path, concealing pitfalls into infinite burnings, and God never told one of his
children a word about it. For four thousand years then the race got on with no
knowledge of a place of torment after death. When was the fact first made
known? And if it was not necessary to the wickedest people the world ever knew,
when did it become necessary? The future world as revealed in
the Old Testament is a conscious existence never described as a place or state
of punishment. Prof. Stuart well calls it "the region of umbra or ghosts.
It was considered as a vast and wide domain or region of which the grave was
only a part or a kind of entrance-way. It appears to have been regarded as
extending deep down into the earth, even to the lowest abysses. In this
boundless region lived and moved at times the manes (or ghosts) of departed
friends." Bishop Lowth: "In the
under-world of the Hebrews there is something peculiarly grand and awful. It
was an immense region, a vast subterranean kingdom, involved in thick darkness
filled with deep valleys, and shut up with strong gates; and from it there was
no possibility of escape. Thither whole hosts of men went down at once; heroes
and armies with their trophies of victory; kings and their people were found
there where they had a shadowy sort of existence as manes or ghosts neither
entirely spiritual nor entirely material, engaged in the employments of their
earthly life though destitute of strength and physical substance." All was
shadowy and unreal beyond death until Christ came and brought immortality to
light through his Gospel. Whitby on Acts 2: 27: "That
Sheol throughout the Old Testament, and Hadees in the Septuagint, answering to
it, signify not the place of punishment, or of the souls of bad men only, but
the grave only, or the place of death appears, first, from the root of it,
Sheol, which signifies to ask, to crave and require. Second, because it is the
place to which the good as well as the bad go, etc." HEATHEN IDEAS OF HELL During all the time that
generations following generations of Jews were entertaining the ideas taught in
these sixty-four passages, the surrounding heathen believed in future, endless
torment. The literature is full of it. Says Good in his "Book of
Nature": "It was believed in most countries 'that this Hell, Hadees,
or invisible world, is divided into two very distinct and opposite regions, by
a broad and impassable gulf; that the one is a seat of happiness, a paradise or
elysium, and the other a seat of misery, a Gehenna or Tartarus; and that there
is a supreme magistrate and an impartial tribunal belonging to the infernal
shades, before which the ghosts must appear, and by which they are sentenced to
the one or the other, according to the deeds done in the body. Egypt is said to
have been the inventress of this important and valuable part of the tradition;
and undoubtedly it is to be found in the earliest records of Egyptian history.'
[It should be observed that Gehenna was not used before Christ, or until 150 A.
D. to denote a place of future punishment."] Homer sings: "Here in a lonely land, and
gloomy cells, The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells; The sun ne'er views the
uncomfortable seats, When radiant he advances or retreats. Unhappy race! whom
endless night invades, Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in
shades." Virgil says: "The gates of Hell are open
night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way." Just in the gate,
and in the jaws of Hell, Revengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell, And pale
Diseases, and repining Age, Want, Fear, and Famine's unresisted rage; Here
Toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother Sleep Forms terrible to view, their
sentry keep; With anxious pleasures of a guilty mind, Deep Frauds before, and
open Force behind; The Furies' iron beds; and Strife, that shakes Her hissing
tresses, and unfolds her snakes. Full in the midst of this infernal road, An
elm displays her dusky arms abroad;-- The god of sleep there bides his heavy
head; And empty dreams on ev'ry leaf are spread. Of various forms unnumbered
spectres more, Centaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door. Before the
passage horrid Hydra stands, And Briarius with his hundred hands; Gorgons,
Geryon with his tripe frame; And vain Chimera vomits empty flame." Dr. Anthon says, "As
regards the analogy between the term Hadees and our English word Hell, it may
be remarked that the latter, in its primitive signification, perfectly
corre-sponded to the former. For, at first, it denoted only what was secret or
concealed; and it is found, moreover, with little variation of form and
precisely with the same meaning in all the Teutonic dialects. The dead without
distinction of good or evil, age or rank, wander there conversing about their
former state on earth; they are unhappy and they feel their wretched state
acutely. They have no strength or power of body or mind. . . Nothing can be
more gloomy and comfortless than the whole aspect of the realm of Hadees, as
pictured by Homer." The heathen sages admit that
they invented the doctrine. Says Polybius: "Since the multitude is ever
fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is no
other way to keep them in order but by the fear and terror of the invisible
world; on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously,
when they contrived to bring into the popular belief these notions of the gods,
and of the infernal regions." B. vi. 56. Strabo says: "The multitude
are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon
offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words
and monstrous forms imprint upon their minds. . . . For it is impossible to
govern the crowd of women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical
reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue-but this must be done by
superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the
thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (Of the Furies), the dragons,
etc., are all fables, as is also all the ancient theology." Geo. B. I.
Seneca says: "Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the
darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment-seat, etc., are
all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with
vain terrors." How near these superstitious horrors--these heathen
inventions--
The Christian Idea Of Hell has sometimes been, may be seen
by quoting the following testimonies. Do they resemble anything in the Old
Testament? Do they not exactly copy the heathen descriptions? Whence came these
idea? They are not found in the Old Testament? And yet the world was full of
them when Christ came. Read the verse of Pollok as lurid and blasphemous as it
is vigorous: Wide was the place, And deep as wide, and ruinous as
deep. Beneath I saw a lake of burning
fire, With tempest tost perpetually,
and still The waves of fiery darkness,
gainst the rocks Of dark damnation broke, and
music made Of melancholy sort; and over
head, And all around, wind warred with
wind, storm howled To storm, and lightning forked
lightning, crossed, And thunder answered thunder,
muttering sound Of sullen wrath; and far as
sight could pierce, Or down descend in caves of
hopeless depth, Thro' all that dungeon of
unfading fire, I saw most miserable beings
walk, Burning continually, yet
unconsumed; Forever wasting, yet enduring
still; Dying perpetually, yet never
dead. Some wandered lonely in the
desert flames, And some in fell encounter
fiercely met, With curses loud, and
blasphemies, that made The cheek of darkness pale; and
as they fought, And cursed, and gnashed their
teeth, and wished to die Their hollow eyes did utter
streams of wo. And there were groans that ended
not, and sighs That always sighed, and tears
that ever wept, And ever fell, but not in
Mercy's sight And Sorrow, and Repentance, and
Despair, Among them walked, and to their
thirsty lips Presented frequent cups of
burning gall. And as I listened, I heard these
being curse Almighty God, and curse the
Lamb, and curse The Earth, the Resurrection
morn, and seek, And ever vainly seek for utter
death. And to their everlasting anguish
still, The thunders from above
responding spoke These words, which thro' the caverns
of perdition Forlornly echoing, fell on every
ear- "Ye knew your duty but ye
did it not" * * * The place thou saw'st was Hell;
the groans thou heard'st The wailings of the damned-of
those who would Not be redeemed-and at the
judgment day, Long past for unrepented sins
were damned. The seven loud thunders which
thou heard'st, declare The eternal wrath of the
Almighty God. * * There in utter darkness, far Remote, I beings saw forlorn in
wo. Burning, continually yet
unconsumed. And there were groans that ended
not, and sighs That always sighed, and tears
that ever wept And ever fell, but not in
Mercy's sight; And still I heard these wretched
beings curse Almighty God, and curse the
Lamb, and curse The Earth, the Resurrection
morn, and seek, And ever vainly seek for utter
death; And from above the thunders
answered still, "Ye know your duty, but ye
did it not." Such descriptions are not
confined to poetry. Plain prose has sought to set forth the doctrine in words
equally repulsive and graphic. Rutherford, in his "Religious
Letters," declares that hereafter "Tongue, lungs and liver, bones and
all shall boil and fry in a torturing fire,--a river of fire and brimstone,
broader than the earth!" Boston, in his 'Fourfold State,'
says: "There will be universal torments, every part of the creature being
tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a fiery furnace, the fire makes
its way into the very bowels, and leaves no member untouched; what part then
can have ease when the damned sinner is in a lake of fire, burning with
brimstone?" Buckle, in his
"Civilization in England," thus sums up the popular doctrine:
"In the pictures which they drew, they reproduced and heightened the
barbarous imagery of a barbarous age. They delighted in telling their hearers
that they would be roasted in great fires and hung up by their tongues. They
were to be lashed with scorpions, and see their companions writhing and howling
around them. They were to be thrown into boiling oil and scalding lead. A river
of brim-stone broader than the earth was prepared for them; in that they were
to be immersed. . . Such were the first stages of suffering, and they were only
the first. For the torture besides being unceasing, was to become gradually
worse. So refined was the cruelty, that one Hell was succeeded by another; and,
lest the sufferer should grow callous, he was, after a time, moved on, that he
might undergo fresh agonies in fresh places, provision being made that the
torment should not pall on the sense, but should be varied in its character as
well as eternal in its duration. "All this was the work of
the God of the Scotch clergy. It was not only his work, it was his joy and his
pride. For, according to them, Hell was created before man came into the word;
the Almighty, they did not scruple to say, having spent his previous leisure in
preparing and completing this place of torture, so that when the human race
appeared, it might be ready for their reception. Ample, however, as the
arrangements were, they were insufficient; and Hell not being big enough to
contain the countless victims incessantly poured into it, had, in these latter
days, been enlarged. But in that vast expanse there was no void, for the whole
of it reverberated with the shrieks and yells of undying agony. Both children
and fathers made Hell echo with their piercing screams, writhing in convulsive
agony at the torments which they suffered, and knowing that other torments more
grievous still were reserved for them." And it was not an infinite Devil,
but a just and merciful God who was accused of having committed all this
infernal cruelty. Michael Angelo's Last Judgment
is an attempt to de-scribe in paint, what was believed then and has been for
centuries since. Henry Ward Beecher thus refers to that great painting. (Plymouth
Pulpit, Oct. 29, 1870): "Let any one look at that; let any one see the
enormous gigantic coils of fiends and men; let any one look at the defiant
Christ that stands like a superb athlete at the front, hurling his enemies from
him and calling his friends toward him as Hercules might have done; let any one
look upon that hideous wriggling mass that goes plunging down through the
air-serpents and men and beasts of every nauseous kind, mixed together; let him
look at the lower parts of the picture, where with the pitchforks men are by
devils being cast into caldrons and into burning fires, where hateful fiends
are gnawing the skulls of suffering sinners, and where there is hellish
cannibalism going on-let a man look at that picture and the scenes which it
depicts, and he sees what were the ideas which men once had of Hell and of
divine justice. It was a night-mare as hideous as was ever begotten by the
hellish brood it-self; and it was an atrocious slander on God. . . . I do not
wonder that men have reacted from these horrors-I honor them for it." Tertullian says: "How shall
I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud
monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates
liquifying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so
many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so
many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many
dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause." Jeremy Taylor, of the English
Church, says: "The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell,
like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every
distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most
exquisite sufferings." Calvin describes it:
"Forever harassed with a dreadful tempest, they shall feel themselves torn
asunder by an angry God, and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings,
terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of this hand, so
that to sink into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment
in these terrors." Jonathan Edwards said: "The
world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in
which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in
which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves
and billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall
forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes,
their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their vitals, shall
forever be full of a flowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very
rocks and elements; and, also, they shall eternally be full of the most quick
and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, not for one day, not
for one age, not for two ages, not for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousand
millions of ages, one after another, but forever and ever, without any end at
all, and never to be delivered." And Spurgeon uses this language
even in our own days: "When thou diest, they soul will be tormented alone:
that will be a hell for it, but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy
soul, and then thou wilt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and
thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth
thy body will lie, asbestos-like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for
the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall
forever play his diabolical tun of Hell's Unutterable Lament." "A Catholic Book for
Children" says: "The fifth dungeon is a red-hot oven in which is a
little child. Hear how it screams to come out! see how it turns and twists
itself about in the fire! It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It
stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. To this child God was very
good. Very likely God saw that this child would get worse and worse, and would
never repent, and so it would have to be punished much worse in Hell. So God,
in his mercy, called it out of the world in its early childhood." Now the horrible ideas we have
just quoted were not obtained from the Old Testament, and yet they were fully
believed by the Jew and Pagan when Christ came. Whence came these views? If the
New Testament teaches them, then Christ must have borrowed them from uninspired
heathen. What does the New Testament teach concerning Hell? Within a few years Christians
have quite generally abandoned their faith in material torments, and have
substituted mental anguish, spiritual torture. But the torment, the anguish,
the woe and agony are only faintly hinted by any possible effect of literal
fire. The modification of opinion from literal fire to spiritual anguish, gives
no relief to the character of God, and renders the "orthodox" hell no
less revolting to every just and merciful feeling in the human heart, no less
dishonorable to God. It is woe unspeakable to millions, without alleviation and
without end, inflicted by a being called God, ordained by him from the
foundation of the world for those he foresaw, before their birth, would
inevitably suffer that woe, if he consented to their birth, compelling his
wretched children to cry for endless eons in the language of Young (Night
Thoughts): "Father of Mercies! why from silent earth Didst thou awake and
curse me into birth, Tear me from quiet, banish me from night, And make a
thankless present of Thy light, Push into being a reverse of Thee And animate a
clod with misery? This question never can be answered. Good men groping in the
eclipse of faith created by the false doctrine of an endless Hell, have tried
in vain to see or explain the reason of it. Albert Barnes, (Presbyterian,)
voices the real thought of millions, when he says: "That any should suffer
forever, lingering on in hopeless despair, and rolling amidst infinite torments
without the possibility of alleviation and without end; that since God can save
men and will save a part, he has not proposed to save all-these are real, not
imaginary, difficulties. . . . My whole soul pants for light and relief on
these questions. But I get neither; and in the distress and anguish of my own
spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to
me why sin came into the world; why the earth is strewn with the dying and the
dead; and why man must suffer to all eternity. I have never seen a particle of
light thrown on these subjects, that has given a moment's ease to my tortured
min. . . . I confess, when I look on a world of sinners and sufferers-upon
death-beds and grave-yards-upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer
for ever: when I see my friends, my family, my people, my fellow citizens when
I look upon a whole race, all involved in this sin and danger-and when I see
the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can
save them, and yet he does not do so, I am stuck dumb. It is all dark, dark,
dark to my soul, and I cannot disguise it."
HADEES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT The word Hadees occurs but
eleven times in the New Testament, and is translated Hell ten times, and grave
once. The word is from a, not, and eulo, to see, and means concealed,
invisible. It has exactly the same meaning as Sheol, literally the grave, or
death, and figuratively destruction, downfall, calamity, or punishment in this
world, with no intimation whatever of torment or punishment beyond the grave.
Such is the meaning in every passage in the Old Testament containing the word
Sheol or Hadees, whether translated Hell, grave or pit. Such is the invariable
meaning of Hadees in the New Testament. Says the "Emphatic Diaglott:"
"To translate Hadees by the word Hell as it is done ten times out of
eleven in the New Testament, is very improper, unless it has the Saxon meaning
of helan, to cover, attached to it. The primitive signification of Hell, only
denoting what was secret or concealed, perfectly corresponds with the Greek
term Hadees and its equivalent Sheol, but the theological definition given to it
at the present day by no means expresses it."
MEANING OF HADEES The Greek Septuagint, which our
Lord used when he read or quoted from the Old Testament, gives Hadees as the
exact equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol, and when the Savior, or his apostles, use
the word, they must mean the same as it meant in the Old Testament. When Hadees
is used in the New Testament, we must understand it just as we do (Sheol or
Hadees) in the Old Testament.
OPINIONS OF SCHOLARS Dr. Campbell well says: * *
"In my judgment, it ought never in Scripture to be rendered Hell, at
least, in the sense wherein that word is now universally understood by
Christians. In the Old Testament, the
corresponding word is Sheol, which signifies the state of the dead in general
without regard to the goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or
misery. In translating that word, the seventy have almost invariably used
Hadees. * * It is very plain, that neither in the Septuagint version of the Old
Testament, nor in the New, does the word Hadees convey the meaning which the
present English word Hell, in the Christian usage, always conveys to our
minds."-Diss. Vi., pp. 180-1. Donnegan defines it thus:
"Invisible, not manifest, concealed, dark, uncertain."-Lex. p. 19. Le Clere affirms that
"neither Hadees nor Sheol ever signifies in the Sacred Scripture the abode
of evil spirits, but only the sepulchre, or the state of the dead."
HEATHEN CORRUPTIONS It must not be forgotten that
contact with the heathen had corrupted the opinions of the Jews, at the time of
our Savior, from the simplicity of Moses, and that by receiving the traditions
and fables of paganism, they had made void the word of God. They had accepted
Hadees as the best Greek word to convey their idea of Sheol, but without investing
it at first with the heathen notions of the classic Hadees, as they afterwards
did. What these ideas were, the classic authors inform us. "The Jews had
acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and their theological
opinions had undergone great changes by this intercourse. We find in
Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon, and the later prophets, notions unknown
to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, which are manifestly derived from
the Orientals. Thus, God represented under the image of light, and the
principle of evil under that of darkness; the history of good and bad angels;
paradise and Hell, etc., are doctrines of which the origin, or at least the
positive determination, can only be referred to the Oriental philosophy."
(Milman's Gibbon ch. 21. of it, or the heathen and "evangelical"
descriptions of Hell are wholly false.) Dr. Thayer in his "Origin
and History," says: "The process is easily understood. About three
hundred and thirty years before Christ, Alexander the Great had subjected to
his rule the whole of Western Asia, including Judea, and also the kingdom of
Egypt. Soon after he founded Alexandria, which speedily became a great
commercial metropolis, and drew into itself a large multitude of Jews, who were
always eager to improve the opportunities of traffic and trade. A few years
later, Ptolemy Soter took Jerusalem, and carried off one hundred thousand of
them into Egypt. Here, of course, they were in daily contact with Egyptians and
Greeks, and gradually began to adopt their philosophical and religious
opinions, or to modify their own in harmony with them." "To what side soever they
turned," says the Universalist Expositor, "the Jews came in contact
with Greeks and with Greek philosophy, under one modification or another. It
was round them and among them; for small bodies of that people were scattered
through their own territories, as well as through the surrounding provinces. It
insinuated itself very slowly at first; but stealing upon them from every
quarter, and operating from age to age, it mingled at length in all their
views, and by the year 150 before Christ, had wrought a visible change in their
notions and habits of thought." We must either reject these
imported ideas, as heathen inventions, or we must admit that the heathen,
centuries before Christ, discovered that of which Moses had no idea. In other
words either uninspired men announced the future fate of sinners centuries
before inspired men knew anything.
JEWISH AND PAGAN OPINIONS At the time of Christ's advent
Jew and Pagan held Hadees to be a place of torment after death, to endure
forever. "The prevalent and
distinguishing opinion was, that the soul survived the body, that vicious souls
would suffer an everlasting imprisonment in Hadees, and that the souls of the
virtuous would both be happy there and in process of time obtain the privilege
of transmigrating into other bodies." * * * (Campbell's Four Gospels,
Diss. 6, Pt. 2, & 19.) Of the Pharisees, Josephus says: "They also
believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that, under the earth,
there will be rewards and punishments, according as they lived virtuously or
viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting
prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again."
(Antiquites, B. 18, Ch. 1, 3. Whiston's Tr.") These doctrines are not found in
the Old Testament. They are of heathen origin. Did Jesus endorse them? Let us
consult all the texts in which he employed the heathen word Hadees.
THRUST DOWN TO HADEES Matt. 11: 23 and Luke 10: 15:
"And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down
to Hell." "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be
thrust down to Hell." Of course, a city never went to a place of torment
after death. The word is used here just as it is in Isa. 14, where Babylon is
said to be brought down to Sheol or Hadees, to denote debasement, overthrow, a
prediction fulfilled to the letter. Dr. Clarke's interpretation is correct:
"The word here means a state of the utmost woe, and ruin, and desolation,
to which these impenitent cities should be reduced. This prediction of our Lord
was literally fulfilled; for, in the wars between the Romans and Jews, these
cities were totally destroyed; so that no traces are now found of Bethsaida,
Chorazin or Capernaum."
JESUS WENT TO HADEES That Hadees is the kingdom of
death, and not a place of torment, after death, is evident from the language of
Acts 2: 27: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell: neither wilt thou suffer
thy holy one to see corruption." Verse 31: "His soul was not left in
Hell, neither his flesh did see corruption," that is his spirit did not
remain in the state of the dead, until his body decayed. No one supposes that
Jesus went to a realm of torment when he died. Jacob wished to go down to
Hadees to his son mourning, so Jesus went to Hadees, the under-world, the
grave. The Apostle's Creed conveys the same idea, when it speaks of Jesus as
descending into Hell. He died, but his soul was not left in the realms of
death, is the meaning.
THE GATES OF HADEES Matt. 14: 18 "And I say
also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;
and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." The word is here used
as an emblem of destruction. "The gates of Hadees" means the powers
of destruction. It is the Savior's manner of saying that his church cannot be
destroyed.
HADEES IS ON EARTH Rev. 6: 8: "And I looked,
and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell
followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the
earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts
of the earth." All the details of this description demonstrates that the
Hell is on earth, and not in the future world. The word also occurs in Rev 1:
18: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive
forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of Hell and of death." To understand
this passage literally, with the popular view of Hell added, would be to
represent Jesus as the Devil's gate keeper. If Hell is a realm of torment, and
the devil is its king, and Jesus keeps the keys, what is he but the devil's
janitor, or turnkey? The idea is that Jesus defies death and the grave, evil,
destruction, and all that is denoted either literally or figuratively by
Hadees, the under-world. Its gates open to him. Cannon Farrar in Excursus II,
"Eternal Hope," observes: "Hell has entirely changed its old
harmless sense of 'the dim under-world,' and that, meaning as it how does, to
myriads of readers, 'a place of endless torment by material fire into which all
impenitent souls pass forever after death,'-it conveys meanings which are not
to be found in any word of the Old or New Testament for which it is presented
as an equivalent. In our Lord's language Capernaum was to be thrust down, not
'to Hell,' but to the silence and desolation of the grave (Hadees); the promise
that 'the gates of Hadees' should not prevail against the church is perhaps a
distinct implication of her triumph even beyond death in the souls of men for
whom he died; Dives uplifts his eyes not 'in Hell,' but in the intermediate
Hadees where he rests till the resurrection to a judgment, in which signs are
not wanting that his soul may have been meanwhile ennobled and purified."
HADEES DESTROYED I Cor. 15: 55: "O death,
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" This is parallel to
Hos. 14: 14, where the destruction of Hadees is prophesied. Whatever Hadees
means, it is not to endure forever. It is destined to be destroyed. It cannot
be endless torment. That its inhabitants are to be delivered from its dominion,
is seen from Rev. 20: 13: "And Death and Hell delivered up the dead that
were in them." This harmonizes with the declaration of David, that he had
been delivered from it already. (Ps. 30: 3; II Sam. 22: 5,6). It does not
retain its victims always, and hence, whatever it may mean, it does not denote
endless imprisonment. Hence the next verse reads, "And death and Hell were
cast into the lake of fire." Can a more striking description of utter
destruction be given than this? Of course the language is all figurative, and
not literal. Hell here denotes evil and its consequences. It is in this world,
it opposes truth and human happiness, but it is to meet with a destruction so
complete that only a se of fire can indicate the character of its destruction. Says Prof. Stuart: "The
king of Hadees, and Hadees itself, i.e., the region or domains of death, are
represented as cast into the burning lake. The general judgment being now come,
mortality having now been brought to a close, the tyrant death, and his domains
along with him, are represented as cast into the burning lake, as objects of
abhorrence and of indignation. They are no more to exercise any power over the
human race." Ex. Es. p. 133. 'And it came to pass, that the beggar died,
and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died, and
was buried; and in Hell (Hadees) he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and
seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." Luke 16: 22, 23. If
this is a literal history, as is sometimes claimed, of the after-death
experiences of two persons, then the good are carried about in Abraham's bosom;
and the wicked are actually roasted in fire, and cry for water to cool their
parched tongues. If these are figurative, then Abraham, Lazarus, Dives and the
gulf and every part of the account are features of a picture, an allegory, as
much as the fire and Abraham's bosom. If it be history, then the good are
obliged to hear the appeals of the damned for that help which they cannot
bestow! They are so near together as to be able to converse across the gulf,
not wide but deep. It was this opinion that caused Jonathan Edwards to teach that
the sight of the agonies of the damned enhances the joys of the blest!
IT IS A PARABLE 1. The story is not fact but
fiction: in other words, a parable. This is denied by some Christians who ask,
Does not our Savior say: "There was a certain rich man?" etc. True,
but all his parables begin in the same way, "A certain rich man had two
sons,: and the like. In Judges 9, we read, "The
trees went forth, on a time, to anoint a king over them, and they said to the
olive tree, reign thou over us." This language is positive, and yet it
describes something that never could have occurred. All fables, parables, and
other fictitious accounts which are related to illustrate important truths,
have this positive form, to give force, point, life-likeness to the lessons
that they inculcate. Dr. Whitby says: "That this
is only a parable and not a real history of what was actually done, is evident
from the circumstances of it, namely, the rich man lifting up his eyes in Hell
and seeing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, his discourse with Abraham, his
complaint of being tormented in flames, and his desire that Lazarus might be
sent to cool his tongue, and if all this be confessedly parable, why should the
rest be accounted history?" Lightfoot and Hammond make the same general comments,
and Wakefield remarks, "To them who regard the narrative a reality it must
stand as an unanswerable argument for the purgatory of the papists." It occurs at the end of a chain
of parables. The Savior had been illustrating several principles by familiar
allegories, or parables. He had exhibited the unjustifiable murmurings of the
Pharisees, in the stories of the Lost Sheep and of the Lost Piece of Silver,
and the parable commencing the sixteenth chapter was directed to the Scribes
and Pharisees, that class of Jews being represented by the Unjust Steward. They
had been unfaithful and their Lord would shortly dismiss them. The account
says: "And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things,
and they derided him," showing, unequivocally, that the force and power of
his references were felt. He continued to illustrate his
doctrines and gave to them a marked cogency by his striking and beautiful
stories. He then struck into this parable designing not to relate an actual
incident but to exhibit certain truths by means of a story. It is clearly
absurd to say that he launched immediately from the figurative mode of
instruction in which he had all along been indulging, into a literal exhibition
of the eternal world, and without any notice of his changed mode of expression,
actually raised the vail that separates this life from the future! He was not
accustomed to teach in that way. And this brings us to another
proof that this is a parable. The Jews have a book, written during the Babylonish
Captivity, entitled Gemara Babylonicum, containing doctrines entertained by
Pagans concerning the future state not recognized by the followers of Moses.
This story is founded on heathen views. They were not obtained from the Bible,
for the Old Testament contains nothing resembling them. They were among those
traditions which our Savior condemned when he told the Scribes and Pharisees,
"Ye make the word of God of none effect through your traditions," and
when he said to his disciples, "Beware of the leaven, or doctrine of the
Pharisees." Our Savior seized the imagery of
this story, not to endorse its truth, but just as we now relate any other
fable. He related it as found in the Gemara, not for the story's sake, but to
convey a moral to his hearers; and the Scribes and Pharisees to whom he
addressed this and the five preceding stories, felt- as we shall see-the force
of its application to them. Says Dr. Geo. Campbell:
"The Jews did not, indeed, adopt the pagan fables, on this subject, nor
did they express themselves entirely, in the same manner; but the general train
of thinking in both came pretty much to coincide. The Greek Hadees they found
well adapted to express the Hebrew Sheol. This they came to conceive as
including different sorts of habitations, for ghosts of different
characters." Now as nothing resembling this parable is found in the Old
Testament where did the Jews obtain it, if not from the heathen? The commentator, Macknight,
Scotch Presbyterian, says truly: "It must be acknowledged that our Lord's
descriptions are not drawn from the writings of the Old Testament, but have a
remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have given.
They represent the abodes of the blest as lying contiguous to the region of the
damned, and separated only by a great impassable gulf in such sort that the
ghosts could talk to one another from its opposite banks. If from these
resemblances it is thought the parable is formed on the Grecian mythology, it
will not at all follow that our Lord approved of what the common people thought
or spoke concerning these matters, agreeably to the notions of Greeks. In
parables, provided the doctrines inculcated are strictly true, the terms in
which they are inculcated may be such as are most familiar to the people, and
the images made use of are such as they are best acquainted with."
DOES NOT TEACH ENDLESS TORMENT But if it were a literal
history, nothing could be gained for the terrible doctrine of endless torment.
It would oblige us to believe in literal fire after death but there is not a
word to show that such fire would never go out. We have heard it claimed that
the punishment of the rich man must be endless, because there was gulf (chasm,
chasma) fixed so that those who desired to could not cross it. But were this a
literal account, it would not follow that the gulf would last always. For are we not assured that the
time is coming when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and
hiss shall be made low?" Isa. 30: 4. When every valley is exalted what
becomes of the great gulf? And then there is exalted, what said of the duration
of the sufferings of the rich man. If the account be a history it must not
militate against the promise of "The restitution of all things spoken by
the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began." There is not
a word intimating that the rich man's torment was never to cease. So the
doctrine of endless misery is after all, not in the least taught here. The most
that can be claimed is that the consequences of sin extend into the future
life, and that is a doctrine that we believe just as strongly as can any one,
though we do not believe they will be endless, nor do we believe the doctrine
taught in this parable, nor in the Bible use of the word Hell. But allowing for a moment that
this is intended to represent a scene in the spirit world, what a
representation we have! Dives is dwelling in a world of fire in the company of
lost spirits, hardened by the depravity that must possess the residents of that
world, and yet yearning in compassion for those on earth. Not totally depraved,
not harboring evil thoughts but benevolent, humane. Instead of being loyal to
the wicked world in which he dwells as anyone bad enough to go there should be,
he actually tries to prevent migration Thither from earth, while Lazarus is
entirely indifferent to everybody but himself. Dives seems to have more mercy
and compassion than does Lazarus.
THE TEACHING OF THE PARABLE But what does the parable teach?
That the Jewish nation, and especially the Scribes and Pharisees were about to
die as a power, as a church, as a controlling influence in the world; while the
common people among them and the Gentiles outside of them were to be exalted in
the new order of things. The details of the parable show this: "There was
a certain rich man clothed in purple and fine linen." In these first
words, by describing their very costume, the Savior fixed the attention of his
hearers on the Jewish priesthood. They were emphatically the rich men of that
nation. His description of the beggar was equally graphic. He lay at the gate
of the rich, only asking to be fed by the crumbs that fell from the table. Thus
dependent were the common people, and the Gentiles on the Scribes and
Pharisees. We remember how Christ once rebuked them for shutting up the kingdom
of heaven against these. They lay at the gate of the Jewish hierarchy. For the
Gentiles were literally restricted to the outer court of the temple. Hence in
Rev. 11: 12 we read: "But the court, which is without the temple, leave
out, and measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles." They could
only walk the outer court, or lie at the gate. We remember the anger of the
Jews at Paul, for allowing Greeks to enter the temple. This is the significance
of the language of the Canaanitish woman, Matt. 15: 27, who desired the Savior
to heal her daughter. The Savior, to try her faith, said: It is not meet to
cast the children's bread to the dogs." She replied, "Truth, Lord,
yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their Mater's table." The
prophet (Isa. 1: 6) represents the common people of Israel as "full of
wounds, bruises, and putrifying sores." The brief, graphic descriptions
given by the Savior, at once showed his hearers that he was describing those
two classes, the Jewish priesthood and nation on the one hand and the common
people, Jews and Gentiles, on the other. The rich man died and was
buried. This class died officially, nationally and its power departed. The
kingdom of God was taken from them and conferred on others. The beggar died.
The Gentiles, publicans and sinners were translated into the kingdom of God's
dear son where is neither Jew nor Greek, but where all are one in Christ Jesus.
This is the meaning of the expression "Abraham's bosom." They
accepted the true faith and so became one with faithful Abraham. Abraham is
called the father of the faithful, and the beggar is represented to have gone
to Abraham's bosom, to denote the fact which is now history, that the common
people and Gentiles would accept Christianity and become Christian nations,
enjoying the blessing of the Christian faith. What is meant by the torment of
the rich man? The misery of those proud men, when soon after their land was
captured and their city and temple possessed by barbarians, and they scattered
like chaff before the wind-a condition in which they have continued from that
day to this. All efforts to bless them with Christianity have proved
unavailing. At this very moment there is a great gulf fixed so that there is no
passing to and fro. And observe, the Jews do not desire the gospel. Nor did the
rich man ask to enter Abraham's bosom with Lazarus. He only wished Lazarus to
alleviate his sufferings by dipping his finger in water and cooling his tongue.
It is so with the Jews today. They do not desire the gospel; they only ask
those among whom they sojourn to tolerate them and soften the hardships that
accompany their wanderings. The Jewish church and nation is now dead. Once they
were exalted to heaven, but now they are thrust down to Hadees, the kingdom of
death, and the gulf that yawns between them and the Gentiles shall not be
abolished till the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, and "then
Israel shall be saved." Lightfoot says: "The main
scope and design of it seems this: to hint the destruction of the unbelieving
Jews, who, though they had Moses and the prophets, did not believe them, nay
would not believe though one (even Jesus) arose from the dead." Our quotations are not from
Universalists, but from those who accepted the doctrine of eternal punishment,
but who were forced to confess that this parable has no reference to that
subject. The rich man or the Jews were and are in the same Hell in which David
was when he said: "The pains of Hell (Hadees) got hold on me, I found
trouble and sorrow," and "thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest
Hell." Not in endless wo in the future world, but in misery and suffering
in this.
HADEES IS TEMPORARY But is this a final condition?
No, wherever we locate it, it must end. Paul asks the Romans, "Have they
(the Jews) stumbled that they should fall? God forbid! but rather through their
fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles." "For I would not,
brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise
in your own conceits, that blindness is in part happened to Israel until the
fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. As it is
written, There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away
ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them when I shall take
away their sins." 11: 22, 25, 27. In brief terms, then we may say
that this is a fictitious story or parable describing the fate in this world of
the Jewish and Gentile people of our Savior's times, and has not the slightest
reference to the world after death, nor to the fate of mankind in that world. Let the reader observe that the
rich man, being in Hadees, was in a place of temporary detention only. Whether
this be a literal story or a parable, his confinement is not to be an endless
one. This is demonstrated in a two-fold manner: 1. Death and Hadees will deliver
up their occupants. Rev. 20: 13. 2. Hadees is to be destroyed. I
Cor. 15: 55; Rev. 20: 14. Therefore Hadees is of temporary
duration. The Rich Man was not in a place of endless torment. As Prof. Stuart
remarks: "Whatever the state of either the righteous or the wicked may be,
whilst in Hadees, that state will certainly cease, and be exchanged for another
at the general resurrection." Thus the New Testament usage agrees exactly
with the Old Testament. Primarily, literally, Hadees is death, the grave, and
figuratively, it is destruction. It is in this world, and is to end. The last
time it is referred to (Rev. 20: 14) as well as in other instances (Hosea 13:
14; I Cor. 15: 55), its destruction is positively announced. So that the instances
(sixty-four) in the Old Testament and (eleven) in the New, in all seventy-five
in the Bible, all perfectly agree in representing the word Hell, derived from
the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hadees, as being in this world and of temporary
duration. We now consider the word
Tartarus: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them
down to Hell (Tartarus), and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be
reserved unto judgment." II Peter 2: 4. The word in the Greek is Tartarus,
or rather it is a very from that noun. "Cast down to hell" should be
tartarused, (tartarosas). The Greeks held Tartarus, says Anthon, in his
Classical Dictionary to be "the fabled place of punishment in the lower
world." "According to the ideas of the Homeric and Hesiodic ages, it
would seem that the world or universe was a hollow globe, divided into two
equal portions by the flat disk of the earth. The external shell of this globe
is called by the poets brazen and iron, probably only to express its solidity.
The superior hemisphere was called Heaven, and the inferior one Tartarus. The
length of the diameter of the hollow sphere is given thus by Hesiod. It would
take, he says, nine days for an anvil to fall from Heaven to Earth; and an
equal space of time would be occupied by its fall from Earth to the bottom of
Tartarus. The luminaries which give light to gods and men, shed their radiance
through all the interior of the upper hemisphere, while that of the inferior
one was filled with eternal darkness, and its still air was unmoved by any
wind. Tartarus was regarded at this period as the prison of the gods and not as
the place of torment for wicked men; being to the gods, what Erebus was to men,
the abode of those who were driven from the supernal world. The Titans, when
conquered were shut up in it and Jupiter menaces the gods with banishment to
its murky regions. The Oceanus of Homer encompassed the whole earth, and beyond
it was a region unvisited by the sun, and therefore shrouded in perpetual
darkness, the abode of a people whom he names Cimmerians. Here the poet of the
Odyssey also places Erebus, the realm of Pluto and Proserpina, the final
dwelling place of all the race of men, a place which the pet of the Iliad
describes as lying within the bosom of the earth. At a later period the change
of religions gradually affected Erebus, the place of the reward of the good;
and Tartarus was raised up to form the prison in which the wicked suffered the
punishment due to their crimes." Virgil illustrates this view, (Dryden's
Virgil, Encid, 6): *'Tis here, in different paths, the way divides:-- The right
to Pluto's golden palace guides, The left to that unhappy region tends. Which to
the depths of Tartarus descends- The scat of night profound and punished
fiends. The gaping gulf low to the
centre lies, And twice as deep as earth is from the skies. The rivals of the gods, the
Titan race, Here, singed with lightning,
roll within th'unfathomed space." Now it is not to be supposed
that Peter endorses and teaches this monstrous nonsense of paganism. If he did,
then we must accept all the absurdities that went with it, in the pagan
mythology. And if this is an item of Christian faith, why is it never referred
to, in the Old or New Testament? Why have we no descriptions of it such as
abound in classic literature?
THE BOOK OF ENOCH Peter alludes to the subject
just as though it were well-known and understood by his correspondents.
"If the angels that sinned."-what angels? "were cast down to
Tartarus," where is the story related? Not in the Bible, but in a book
well-known at the time, called the Book of Enoch. It was written some time
before the Christian Era, and is often quoted by the Christian fathers. It
embodies a tradition, to which Josephus alludes, (Ant. 1: 3) of certain angels
who had fallen. (Dr. T. J. Sawyer, in Univ. Quart.) From this apocryphal book,
Peter quoted the verse referring to Tartarus Dr. Sawyer says: "Not only
the moderns are forced to this opinion, but it seems to have been universally
adopted by the ancients. 'Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Hilary,'
say Professor Stuart, 'all of whom refer to the book before us, and quote from
it, say nothing which goes to establish the idea that any Christians of their
day denied or doubted that a quotation was made by the apostle Jude from the
Book of Enoch. Several and in fact most of these writers do indeed call in
question the canonical rank or authority of the Book of Enoch; but the
apologies which they make for the quotation of it in Jude, show that the
quotation itself was, as a matter of fact, generally conceded among them.'
There are it is true some individuals who still doubt whether Jude quoted the
Book of Enoch; but while as Professor Stuart suggests, this doubt is incapable
of being confirmed by any satisfactory proof, it avails nothing to deny the
quotation; for it is evident if Jude did not quote the Book of Enoch, he did
quote a tradition of no better authority." This Book of Enoch is full of
absurd legends, which no sensible man can accept.
WHAT DID PETER MEAN? Why did Peter quote from it?
Just as men now quote from the classics not sanctioning the truth of the
quotation but to illustrate and enforce a proposition. Nothing is more common
than for writers to quote fables: "As the tortoise said to the hare,"
in Aesop. "As the sun said to the wind," etc. We have the same
practice illustrated in the Bible. Joshua, after a poetical quotation adorning
his narrative, says: "Is not this written in the Book of Jasher? Josh. 10:
13 and Jeremiah 48: 45 says: "A fire shall come forth out of
Heshbon," quoting from an ancient poet, says Dr. Adam Clarke. Peter
alludes to this ancient legend to illustrate the certainty of retribution
without any intention of teaching the silly notions of angels falling from
heaven and certainly not meaning to sanction the then prevalent notions
concerning the heathen Tartarus. There is this alternative only: either the
pagan doctrine is true and the heathen got ahead of inspiration by ascertaining
the facts before the authors of the Bible learned it-for it was currently
accepted centuries before Christ and is certainly not taught in the Old
Testament- or Peter quotes it as Jesus refers to Mammon rhetorically to
illustrate the great fact of retribution he was inculcating. If true, how can
anyone account for the fact that it is never referred to in the Bible, before
or after this once? Besides, these angels are not to be detained always in Tartarus,
they are to be released. The language is, "delivered them into chains of
darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." When their judgment comes, they
emerge from duress. They only remain in Tartarus "unto judgment."
Their imprisonment is not endless so that the language gives no proof of
endless punishment even if it be a literal description. But no one can fail to see that
the apostle employs the legend from the Book of Enoch to illustrate and enforce
his doctrine of retribution. As though he had said: "If, as is believed by
some, God spared not the angels that sinned, do not let us who sin, mortal men,
expect to escape." If this view is denied, there is no escape from the
gross doctrine of Tartarus as taught by the pagans and that, too, on the testimony
of a solitary sentence of Scripture! But whatever may be the intent of the
words, they do not teach endless torment, for the chains referred to only last
unto the judgment.
GEHENNA While nearly all
"orthodox" authorities of eminence concede that Sheol and Hadees do
not denote a place of torment in the future world, most of those who accept the
doctrine of endless torment claim that Gehenna does convey that meaning. Campbell, in his "Four
Gospels," says: "That Gehenna is employed in the New Testament, to
denote the place of future punishment, prepared for the devil and his angels,
is indisputable. This is the sense, if I mistake not, in which Gehenna is
always to be understood in the New Testament, where it occurs just twelve
times. It is a word peculiar to the Jews, and was employed by them some time
before the coming of Christ, to denote that part of Sheol which was the
habitation of the wicked after death. This is proved by the fact of its
familiar use in the New Testament, and by the fact of its being found in the
Apocrypha books and Jewish Targunis, some of which were written before the time
of our Savior." But no such force resides in the
word, nor is there a scintilla of evidence that it ever conveyed such an idea
until many years after Christ. It is not found in the Apocrypha, Campbell
mistakes. Stuart says (Exeg. Ess.);
"It is admitted that the Jews of a later date used the word Gehenna to
denote Tartarus, that is, the place of infernal punishment." In the second century Clemens
Alexandrinus says: "Does not Plato acknowledge both the rivers of fire,
and that profound depth of the earth which the barbarians call Gehenna? Does he
not mention prophetically, Tartarus, Cocytus, Acheron, the Phlegethon of fire,
and certain other places of punishment, which lead to correction and
discipline?" Univ. Ex. But an examination of the Bible use of the term will show us that the popular view is obtained by injecting the word with pagan superstition. Its origin and the first references to it in the Old Testament, are well stated by eminent critics and exegetes.
OPINION OF SCHOLARS Says Campbell: "The word
Gehenna is derived, as all agree, from the Hebrew words ge hinnom; which, in
process of time, passing into other languages, assumed diverse forms; e.g.,
Chaldee Gehennom, Arabic Gahannam, Greek Gehenna. The valley of Hinnom is part of
the pleasant wadi or valley, which bounds Jerusalem on the south. Josh. 15: 8;
18: 6. Here, in ancient times and under some of the idolatrous kings, the
worship of Moloch, the horrid idol-god of the Ammonites, was practiced. To this
idol, children were offered in sacrifice. II Kings 23: 10; Ezek. 23: 37, 39; II
Chron. 28: 3; Lev. 28: 21; 20: 2. If we may credit the Rabbins, the head of the
idol was like that of an ox; while the rest of the body resembled that of a
man. It was hollow within; and being heated by fire, children were laid in its
arms and were literally roasted alive. We cannot wonder, then at the severe
terms in which the worship of Moloch is everywhere denounced in the Scriptures.
Nor can we wonder that the place itself should have been called Tophet, i.e.,
abomination, detestation, (from toph, to vomit with loathing)." Jer. 8:
32; 19: 6; II Kings 23: 10; Ezek. 23: 36, 39. "After these sacrifices had
ceased, the place was desecrated, and made one of loathing and horror. The
pious king Josiah caused it to be polluted, i.e., he caused to be carried there
the filth of the city of Jerusalem. It would seem that the custom of
desecrating this place thus happily begun, was continued in after ages down to
the period when our Savior was on earth. Perpetual fires were kept up in order
to consume the offal which was deposited there. And as the same offal would
breed worms, (for so all putrefying meat does of course), hence came the
expression, 'Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.' "
Stuart's Exegetical Ess., pp. 140-141. "Gehenna, originally a
Hebrew word, which signifies the valley of Hinnom, is composed of the common
noun, Gee, valley, and the proper name Hinnom, the owner of this valley. The
valley of the sons of Hinnom was a delightful vale, planted with trees, watered
by fountains, and lying near Jerusalem, on the south-east, by the brook Kedron.
Here the Jews placed that brazen image of Moloch, which had the face of a calf,
and extended its hands as those of a man. It is said, on the authority of the
ancient Rabbins, that, to this image, the idolatrous Jews were wont not only to
sacrifice doves, pigeons, lambs, rams, calves and bulls, but even to offer
their children. I Kings 9: 7; II Kings 15: 3, 4. In the prophecy of Jeremiah,
(Ch. 7: 31), this valley is called Tophet, from Toph, a drum; because the
administrators in these horrid rites, beat drums, lest the cries and shrieks of
the infants who were burned, should be heard by the assembly. At length, these
nefarious practices were abolished by Josiah, and the Jews brought back to the
pure worship of God. II Kings 23: 10. After this,
they held the place in such abomination, it is said, that they cast into it all
kinds of filth, together with the carcasses of beasts, and the unburied bodies
of criminals who had been executed. Continual fires were necessary, in order to
consume these, lest the putrefaction should infect the air; and there were always
worms feeding on the remaining relics. Hence it came, that any severe
punishment, especially a shameful kind of death, was denominated Gehenna."
Schleusner. As we trace the history of the
locality as it occurs in the Old Testament we learn that it should never have
been translated by the word Hell. It is a proper name of a well-known locality,
and ought to have stood Gehenna, as it does in the French Bible, in Newcome's
and Wakefield's translations. In the Improved Version, Emphatic Diaglott, etc.
Babylon might have been translated Hell with as much propriety as Gehenna. It
is fully described in numerous passages in the Old Testament, and is exactly
located.
GEHENNA LOCATED IN THIS WORLD "And the border went up by
the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same
is Jerusalem, and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth
before the valley of Hinnom westward." Joshua 15: 8. "And he (Josiah)
defiled Tophet, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man
might make his son or daughter to pass through the fire to Moloch." II
Kings 23: 10. "Moreover, he (Ahaz) burnt incense in the valley of the son
of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the
heathen." II Chron. 28: 3. "And they (the children of Judah) have
built the high places of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to
burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not,
neither came it into my heart. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the
Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of
Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there
be no place." Jer. 7: 31, 32. "And go forth into the valley of the
son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the
words that I shall tell thee. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of
Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter." Jer 19: 2, 6. These and other passages show
that Gehenna was a well-known valley, near Jerusalem, in which the Jews in
their idolatrous days had sacrificed their children to the idol Moloch, in
consequence of which it was condemned to receive the offal and refuse and
sewage of the city, and into which the bodies of malefactors were cast and
where to destroy the odor and pestilential influences, continual fires were
kept burning. Here fire, smoke, worms bred by the corruption, and other
repulsive features, rendered the place a horrible one, in the eyes of the Jews.
It was locality with which they were as well acquainted as they were with any
place in or around the city. The valley was sometimes called Tophet, according
to Schleusner, from Toph, a drum, because drums were beat during the idolatrous
rites, but Adam Clarke says in consequence of the fact that Moloch was hollow,
and heated, and children were placed in its arms, and burn to death; the word
Tophet he says, meaning fire stove; but Prof. Stuart thinks the name derived
from "Toph, to vomit the loathing." After these horrible practices,
King Josiah polluted the place and rendered it repulsive. "Therefore, behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the
valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury
in Tophet till there be no place. And the carcasses of this people shall be
meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none
shall fray them away. Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and
from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be
desolate." Jer. 7: 32-34. "At that time, saith the Lord, they shall
bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of the princes, and
the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out
of the graves: and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all
the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after
whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have
worshipped; they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung
upon the face of the earth. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all
the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the
places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts. And I will make
this city desolate, and a hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be
astonished and hiss, because of all the plagues thereof. And I will cause them
to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall
eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith
their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. And they
shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. Thus will I do unto
this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make the
city as Tophet: and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of
Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon
whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have
poured out drink offerings unto other gods. Then came Jeremiah from Tophet,
whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the
Lord's house, and said to all the people: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God
of Israel: Behold I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the
evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks,
that they might not hear my words." Jer. 19: 8-15. These passages show that Gehenna
or Tophet was a horrible locality near Jerusalem, and that to be cast there
literally, was the doom threatened and executed originally. Every reference is
to this world, and to a literal casting into that place. In Dr. Bailey's English
Dictionary, Gehenna is defined to be "a place in the valley of the tribe
of Benjamin, terrible for two sorts of fire in it, that wherein the Israelites
sacrificed their children to the idol Moloch, and also another kept continually
burning to consume the dead carcasses and filth of Jerusalem." But in process of time Gehenna
came to be an emblem of the consequences of sin, and to be employed
figuratively by the Jews, to denote those consequences. But always in this
world. The Jews never used it to mean torment after death, until long after
Christ. That the word had not the meaning of post-mortem torment when our Savior
used it, is demonstrable: Josephus was a Pharisee, and
wrote at about the time of Christ, and expressly says that the Jews at the time
(corrupted from the teaching of Moses) believed in punishment after death, but
he never employs Gehenna to denote the place of punishment. He uses the word
Hadees, which the Jews had then obtained from the heathen, but he never uses
Gehenna, as he would have done, had it possessed that meaning then. This
demonstrates that the word had no such meaning then. In addition to this
neither the Apocrypha, which was written from 280 to 150 years. B. C., nor
Philo, ever uses the word. It was first used in the modern sense of Hell by
Justin Martyr, one hundred and fifty years after Christ. Dr. Thayer concludes a most
thorough excursus on the word ("Theology, etc.,") thus: "Our
inquiry shows that it is employed in the Old Testament in its literal or
geographical sense only, as the name of the valley lying on the south of
Jerusalem-that the Septuagint proves it retained this meaning at late as B. C.
150--that it is not found at all in the Apocrypha; neither of Philo, nor in
Josephus, whose writings cover the very times of the Savior and the New
Testament, thus leaving us without a single example of contemporary usage to
determine its meaning at this period-that from A. D. 150-195, we find in two
Greek authors, Justin and Clement of Alexandria, the first resident in Italy
and the last in Egypt that Gehenna began to be used to designate a place of
punishment after death, but not endless punishment since Clement was a believer
in universal restoration-that the first time we find Gehenna used in this sense
in any Jewish writing is near the beginning of the third century, in the Targum
of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, two hundred years too late to be of any service in the
argument-and lastly, that the New Testament usage shows that while it had not
wholly lost its literal sense, it was also employed in the time of Christ as a
symbol of moral corruption and wickedness; but more especially as a figure of
the terrible judgments of God on the rebellious and sinful nation of the
Jews." The Jewish talmuds and targums
use the word in the sense that the Christian Church has so long used it, though
without attributing endlessness to it, but none of them are probably older than
A. D. 200. The oldest is the targum (translation) of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, which
was written according to the best authorities between A. D. 200 and A. D. 400. "Most of the eminent
critics now agree, that it could not have been completed till some time between
two and four hundred years after Christ." Univ. Expos. Vol 2, p. 368.
"Neither the language nor the method of interpretation is the same in all
the books. In the historical works, the text is translated with greater accuracy
than elsewhere; in some of the Prophets, as in Zechariah, the interpretation
has more of the Rabbinical and Talmudical character. From this variety we may
properly infer, that the work is a collection of interpretations of several
learned men made toward the close of the third century, and containing some of
a much older date; for that some parts of it existed as early as in the second
century, appears from the additions which have been transferred from some
Chaldee paraphrase into the Hebrew text, and were already in the text in the
second century." Jahn Int. p. 66. Horne's Intro. Vol. 2. p. 160. Dr. T. B. Thayer in his
"Theology," says: "Dr. Jahn assigns it to the end of the third
century after Christ; Eichhorn decides for the fourth century; Bertholdt
inclines to the second or third century, and is confident that it 'cannot have
attained its present complete form, before the end of the second century.'
Bauer coincides generally in these views. Some critics put the date even
as low down as the seventh or eighth century. See a full discussion of the
question in the Universalist Expositor, Vol. 2, p. 35l-368. See, also, Horne's
Introduction, Vol. 2, 157-163. Justin Martyr. A. D. 150, and Clement of
Alexandria, A. D. 195, both employ Gehenna to designate the place of future
punishment; but the first utters an opinion only of its meaning in a certain
text, and the last was a Universalist and did not, of course, believe that
Gehenna was the place of endless punishment. Augustine, A. D. 400, says Gehenna
'stagnum ignis el sulphuris corporeus ignis erit.' De Civitate Dei, L. 21. C.
10." At the time of Christ the Old
Testament existed in Hebrew. The Septuagint translation of it was made between
two hundred and four hundred years before his birth. In both Gehenna is never
used as the name of a place of future punishment. A writer in the Universalist
Expositor remarks, (Vol. 2): "Both the Apocrypha, and the works of Philo,
when compared together, afford circumstantial evidence that the word cannot
have been currently employed, during their age, to denote a place of future
torment. . . . From the few traces which remain to us of this age, it seems
that the idea of future punishment, such as it was among the Jews, was
associated with that of darkeness, and not of fire; and that among those of
Palestine, the misery of the wicked was supposed to consist rather in
privation, than in positive infliction. . . . But we cannot discover, in
Josephus, that either of these sects, the Pharisees or the Essenes, both of
which believed the doctrine of endless misery, supposed it to be a state of
fire, or that the Jews ever alluded to it by that emblem." Thus the Apocrypha, B. C.
150-500, Philo Judaeus A. D. 40, and Josephus, A. D. 70-100, all refer to
future punishment, but none of them use Gehenna to describe it, which they
would have done, being Jews, had the word been then in use with that meaning.
Were it the name of a place of future torment, then, can any one doubt that it
would be found repeatedly in their writings? And does not the fact that it is
never found in their writings demonstrate that it had no such use then, and if
so, does it not follow that Christ used it in no such sense? Canon Farrar says of Gehenna
(Preface to "Eternal Hope): "In the Old Testament it is merely the pleasant
valley of Hinnom (Ge Hinnom), subsequently desecrated by idolatry, and
especially by Moloch worship, and defiled by Josiah on this account. (See I
Kings 11: 7; II Kings 23: 10.)(Jer. 7: 31; 19: 10-14; Isa. 30: 33; Tophet).
Used according to Jewish tradition, as the common sewage of the city, the
corpses of the worst criminals were flung into it unburied, and fires were lit
to purify the contaminated air. It then became a word which secondarily implied
(1) the severest judgment which a Jewish court could pass upon a criminal-the
casting forth of his unburied corpse amid the fires and worms of this polluted
valley; and (2) a punishment-which to the Jews a body never meant an endless
punishment beyond the grave. Whatever may be the meaning of the entire passages
in which the word occurs, 'Hell' must be a complete mistranslation, since it
attributes to the term used by Christ a sense entirely different from that in
which it was understood by our Lord's hearers, and therefore entirely different
from the sense in which he could have used it. Origen says (c. Celsus 6: 25)
that Gehenna denotes (1) the vale of Hinnon; and (2) a purificatory fire (eis
ten meta basanon katharsin). He declares that Celsus was totally ignorant of
the meaning of Gehenna."
JEWISH VIEWS OF GEHENNA Gehenna is the name given by
Jews to Hell. Rev. H. N. Adler, a Jewish Rabbi, says: "They do not teach
endless retributive suffering. They hold that it is not conceivable that a God
of mercy and justice would ordain infinite punishment for finite
wrong-doing." Dr. Dentsch declares: "There is not a word in the
Talmud that lends any support to that damnable dogma of endless torment."
Dr. Dewes in his "Plea for Rational Translation," says that Gehenna
is alluded to four or five times in the Mishna, thus: "The judgment of
Gehenna is for twelve months;" "Gehenna is a day in which the impious
shall be burnt." Bartolocci declares that "the Jews did not believe
in a material fire, and thought that such fire as they did believe in would one
day be put out." Rabbi Akiba, "the second Moses," said:
"The duration of the punishment of the wicked in Gehenna is twelve
months." Adyoth 3: 10. some rabbis said Gehenna only lasted from Passover
to Pentecost. This was the prevalent conception. (Abridged from Excursus 5, in
Canon Farrar's "Eternal Hope." He gives in a note these testimonies
to prove that the Jews to whom Jesus spoke, did not regard Gehenna as of
endless duration). Asarath Maamaroth, f. 35, 1: "There will hereafter be
no Gehenna." Jalkuth Shimoni, f. 46, 1: "Gabriel and Michael will
open the eight thousand gates of Gehenna, and let out Israelites and righteous
Gentiles." A passage in Othoth, (attributed to R. Akiba) declares that
Gabriel and Michael will open the forty thousand gates of Gehenna, and set free
the damned, and in Emek Hammelech, f. 138, 4, we read: "The wicked stay in
Gehenna till the resurrection, and then the Messiah, passing through it redeems
them." See Stephelius' Rabbinical Literature. Rev. Dr. Wise, a learned Jewish
Rabbi, says: "That the ancient Hebrews had no knowledge of Hell is evident
from the fact that their language has no term for it. When they in after times
began to believe in a similar place they were obliged to borrow the word
'Gehinnom,' the valley of Hinnom,' a place outside of Jerusalem, which was the
receptacle for the refuse of the city-a locality which by its offensive smell
and sickening miasma was shunned, until vulgar superstition surrounded it with
hob-goblins. Haunted places of that kind are not rare in the vicinity of
populous cities. In the Mishna of the latest origin the word Gehinnom is used
as a locality of punishment for evil-doers, and hence had been so used at no
time before the third century, A. D." From the time of Josephus
onwards, there is an interval of about a century, from which no Jewish writings
have descended to us. It was a period of dreadful change with that ruined and
distracted people. The body politic was dissolved, the whole system of their
ceremonial religion had been crushed in the fall of their city and temple; and
they themselves scattered abroad were accursed on all the face of the earth.
Their sentiments underwent a rapid transformation, and when next we see their
writings, we find them filled with every extravagant conceit that mad and
visionary brains ever cherished. Expos. Vol. 2. Art, Gehenna, II Ballou, 2d. Before considering the passages
of Scripture containing the word, the reader should carefully read and remember
the following:
IMPORTANT FACTS Gehenna was a well-known locality
near Jerusalem, and ought no more to be translated Hell, than should Sodom or
Gomorrah. See Josh. 15: 8; II Kings 17: 10; II Chron. 28: 3; Jer. 7: 31, 32;
19: 2. Gehenna is never employed in the
Old Testament to mean anything else than the place with which every Jew was
familiar. The word should have been left
untranslated as it is in some versions, and it would not be misunderstood. It
was not misunderstood by the Jews to whom Jesus addressed it. Walter Balfour
well says: "What meaning would the Jews who were familiar with this word,
and knew it to signify the valley of Hinnom, be likely to attach to it when
they heard it used by our Lord? Would they, contrary to all former usage,
transfer its meaning from a place with whose locality and history they had been
familiar from their infancy, to a place of misery in another world? This
conclusion is certainly inadmissible. By what rule of interpretation, then, can
we arrive at the conclusion that this word means a place of misery and
death?" The French Bible, the Emphatic
Diaglott, Improved Version, Wakefield's Translation and Newcomb's retain the
proper noun, Gehenna, the name of a place as well-known as Babylon. Gehenna is never mentioned in
the Apocrypha as a place of future punishment as it would have been had such
been its meaning before and at the time of Christ. No Jewish writer, such as
Josephus or Philo, ever uses it as the name of a place of future punishment, as
they would have done had such then been its meaning. No classic Greek author ever
alludes to it and therefore it was a Jewish locality, purely. The first Jewish writer who ever
names it as a place of future punishment is Jonathan Ben Uzziel who wrote,
according to various authorities, from the second to the eighth century, A. D. The first Christian writer who
calls Hell Gehenna is Justin Martyr who wrote about A. D. 150. Neither Christ nor his apostles
ever named it to Gentiles, but only to Jews which proves it a locality only
known to Jews, whereas, if it were a place of punishment after death for
sinners, it would have been preached to Gentiles as well as Jews. It was only referred to twelve
times on eight occasions in all the ministry of Christ and the apostles, and in
the Gospels and Epistles. Were they faithful to their mission to say no more
than this on so vital a theme as an endless Hell, if they intended to teach it?
Only Jesus and James ever named
it. Neither Paul, John, Peter nor Jude ever employ it. Would they not have
warned sinners concerning it, if there were a Gehenna of torment after death? Paul says he "shunned not
to declare the whole counsel of God," and yet though he was the great
preacher of the Gospel to the Gentiles he never told them that Gehenna is a
place of after-death punishment. Would he not have repeatedly warned sinners
against it were there such a place? Dr. Thayer significantly
remarks: "The Savior and James are the only persons in all the New
Testament who use the word. John Baptist, who preached to the most wicked of
men did not use it once. Paul wrote fourteen epistles and yet never once
mentions it. Peter does not name it, nor Jude; and John, who wrote the gospel,
three epistles, and the Book of Revelations, never employs it in a single
instance. Now if Gehenna or Hell really reveals the terrible fact of endless
woe, how can we account for this strange silence? How is it possible, if they
knew its meaning and believed it a part of Christ's teaching that they should
not have used it a hundred or a thousand times, instead of never using it at
all; especially when we consider the infinite interests involved? The Book of
Acts contains the record of the apostolic preaching,and the history of the
first planting of the church among the Jews and Gentiles, and embraces a period
of thirty years from the ascension of Christ. In all this history, in all this
preaching of the disciples and apostles of Jesus there is no mention of
Gehenna. In thirty years of missionary effort these men of God, addressing
people of all characters and nations never under any circumstances threaten
them with the torments of Gehenna or allude to it in the most distant manner!
In the face of such a fact as this can any man believe that Gehenna signifies
endless punishment and that this is part of divine revelation, a part of the
Gospel message to the world? These considerations show how impossible it is to
establish the doctrine in review on the word Gehenna. All the facts are against
the supposition that the term was used by Christ or his disciples in the sense
of endless punishment. There is not the least hint of any such meaning attached
to it, nor the slightest preparatory notice that any such new revelation was to
be looked for in this old familiar word." Jesus never uttered it to
unbelieving Jews, nor to anybody but his disciples, but twice (Matt. 23: 15-33)
during his entire ministry, nor but four times in all. If it were the final
abode of unhappy millions, would not his warnings abound with exhortations to
avoid it? Jesus never warned unbelievers
against it but once in all his ministry (Matt. 23: 33) and he immediately
explained it as about to come in this life. If Gehenna is the name of Hell
then men's bodies are burned there as well as their souls. Matt. 5: 29; 18: 9. If it be the name of endless
torment, then literal fire is the sinner's punishment. Mark 9: 43-48. Salvation is never said to be
from Gehenna. Gehenna is never said to be of
endless duration nor spoken of as destined to last forever, so that even
admitting the popular ideas of its existence after death it gives no support to
the idea of endless torment. Clement, a Universalist, used
Gehenna to describe his ideas of punishment. He was one of the earliest of the
Christian Fathers. The word did not then denote endless punishment. A shameful death or severe
punishment in this life was at the time of Christ denominated Gehenna
(Schleusner, Canon Farrar and others), and there is no evidence that Gehenna
meant anything else at the time of Christ. With these preliminaries let us
consider the twelve passages in which the word occurs. "But I say unto you, That
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the
judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raea, shall be in danger of
the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of
Hell-fire." Matt. 5: 22. The purpose of Jesus here was to show how
exacting is Christianity. It judges the motives. This he affirms in the last
sentence of the verse, after referring to the legal penalties of Judaism in the
first two. The "judgment" here is the lower ecclesiastical court of
twenty-three judges: the "council" is the higher court, which could
condemn to death. But Christianity is so exacting, that if one is contemptuous
towards another, he will be adjudged by Christian principles guilty of the
worst crimes, as "he who hates his brother has already committed murder in
his heart." We can give the true meaning of this passage in the words of
"orthodox" commentators. Wynne correctly says: "This
alludes to the three degrees of punishment among the Jews, viz., civil
punishment inflicted by the judges or elders at the gates; excommunication
pronounced by the great Ecclesiastical Council or Sanhedrim; and burning to
death, like those who were sacrificed to devils in the valley of Hinnom or
Tophet, where the idolatrous Israelites used to offer their children to
Moloch." Note in loc. Dr. Adam Clarke says: "It is very probable that
our Lord means no more here than this: 'If a man charge another with apostasy
from the Jewish religion, or rebellion against God, and cannot prove his
charge, then he is exposed to that punishment (burning alive) which the other
must have suffered, if the charges had been substantiated. There are three
offenses here which exceed each other in their degrees of guilt. 1. Anger
against a man, accompanied with some injurious act. 2. Contempt, expressed by
the opprobrious epithet raea, or shallow brains. 3. Hatred and mortal enmity,
expressed by the term morch, or apostate, where such apostasy could not be proved.
Now proportioned to these three offenses were three different degrees of
punishment, each exceeding the other in severity, as the offenses exceeded each
other in their different degrees of guilt. 1. The judgment, the council of
twenty-three, which could inflict the punishment of strangling. 2. The
Sanhedrim, or great council, which could inflict the punishment of stoning. 3.
The being burnt in the valley of the son of Hinnom. This appears to be the
meaning of our Lord. Our Lord here alludes to the valley of the son of Hinnom.
This place was near Jerusalem; and had been formerly used for these abominable
sacrifices in which the idolatrous Jews had caused their children to pass
through the fire to Moloch." Com. in loc. We do not understand that a
literal casting into Gehenna is here inculcated-as Clarke and Wynne teach-but
that the severest of all punishments are due those who are contemptuous to
others. Gehenna fire is here figuratively and not literally used, but its
torment is in this life. Barnes: "In this verse it
denotes a degree of suffering higher than the punishment inflicted by the court
of seventy, the Sanhedrim. And the whole verse may therefore mean, He that
hates his brother without a cause, is guilty of a violation of the sixth commandment,
and shall be punished with a severity similar to that inflicted by the court of
judgment. He that shall suffer his passions to transport him to still greater
extravagances, and shall make him an object of derision and contempt, shall be
exposed to still severer punishment, corresponding to that which the Sanhedrim,
or council, inflicts. But he who shall load his brother with odious
appellations and abusive language, shall incur the severest degree of
punishment, represented by being burnt alive in the horrid and awful valley of
Hinnom." (Com.)--A. A. Livermore, D. D., says: "Three degrees of
anger are specified, and three corresponding gradations of punishment,
proportioned to the different degrees of guilt. Where these punishments will be
inflicted, he does not say, he need not say. The man, who indulges any wicked
feelings against his brother man, is in this world punished; his anger is the
torture of his soul and unless he repents of it and forsakes it, it must prove
his woe in all future states of his being." Whether Jesus here means the
literal Gehenna, or makes these three degrees of punishment emblems of the
severe spiritual penalties inflicted by Christianity, there is no reference to
the future world in the language. "Unlike the teachings of Judaism, Jesus
taught that it was not absolutely necessary to commit the overt act, to be
guilty before God, but if a man wickedly gave way to temptation, and harbored
vile passions and purposes, he was guilty before God and amenable to the divine
law. He who hated his brother was a murderer. Jesus also taught that punishment
under his rule was proportioned to criminality, as under the legal
dispensation. He refers to three distinct modes of punishment recognized by
Jewish regulations. Each one of these exceeded the other in severity. They
were, first, strangling or beheading; second, stoning; and third, burning
alive. The lower tribunal or court, referred to in the passage before us, by
the term 'judgment,' was composed of twenty-three judges, or as some learned
men think, of seven judges and two scribes. The higher tribunal, or 'council'
was doubtless the Sanhedrim, the highest ecclesiastical and civil tribunal of
the Jews, composed of seventy judges, whose prerogative it was to judge the
greatest offenders of the law, and could even condemn the guilty to death. They
were often condemned to Gehenna-fire or as it is translated Hell-fire. Jesus
did not intend to say, that under the Christian dispensation, men should be
brought before the different tribunals referred to in the text to be
adjudicated but he designed to show that under the new economy of grace and
truth man was still a subject of retributive justice, but was judged according
to the motives of the heart. 'But I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment.' According to the
Christian principle, man is guilty if he designs to do wrong." Livermore's
"Proof Texts."
CAST INTO HELL-FIRE "And if thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be
cast into Hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from
thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and
not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell. Matt. 5: 28, 29. "And if
thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for
thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into
Hell-fire. Matt 18: 9: "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is
better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into
Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. And if thy foot offend thee,
cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet
to be cast into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. And if thine
eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom
of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into Hell-fire." Mark
9: 43, 49. These passages mean that it is
better to accept Christianity, and forego some worldly privilege, than to
possess all worldly advantages, and be overwhelmed in the destruction then
about to come upon the Jews, when multitudes were literally cast into Gehenna.
Or it may be figuratively used, as Jesus probably used it, thus: it is better
to enter the Christian life destitute of some great worldly advantage,
comparable to a right hand, than to live in sin, with all worldly privileges,
and experience that moral death which is a Gehenna of the soul. In this sense
it may be used of men now as then. But there is no reference to an after-death
suffering, in any proper use of the terms. The true idea of the language is
this: Embrace the Christian life, whatever sacrifice it calls for. The latter
clause carries out the idea, in speaking of:
THE UNDYING WORM "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Undoubtedly Jesus had reference to the language of the prophet. "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched: and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." Isa. 66: 23, 24. The prophet and the Savior both
referred to the overthrow of Jerusalem, though by accommodation we may apply
the language generally, understanding by Hell, or Gehenna, that condition
brought upon the soul in this world by sin. But the application by the prophet
and the Savior was to the day then soon to come. The undying worm was in this
world. Strabo calls the lamp in the
Parthenon, and Plutarch calls the sacred fire of a temple
"unquenchable," though they were extinguished ages ago. Josephus says
that the fire on the altar of the temple at Jerusalem was "always
unquenchable," asbeston aei, though the fire had gone out and the temple
was destroyed at the time of his writing. Eusebius says that certain martyrs of
Alexandria "were burned in unquenchable fire," though it was
extinguished in the course of an hour, the very epithet in English, which Homer
has in Greek, asbestos gelos, (Iliad, 1: 599), unquenchable laughter. Bloomfield says in his Notes:
"Deny thyself what is even the most desirable and alluring, and seems the
most necessary, when the sacrifice is demanded by the good of thy soul. Some
think that there is an allusion to the amputation of diseased members of the
body, to prevent the spread of any disorder." Dr. A. A. Livermore adds:
"The main idea here conveyed, is that of punishment, extreme suffering,
and no intimation is given as to its place, or its duration, whatever may be
said in other texts in relation to these points. Wickedness is its own Hell. A
wronged conscience, awakened to remorse, is more terrible than fire or worm. In
this life and in the next, sin and woe are forever coupled together, God has
joined them, and man cannot put them asunder." Says the Universalist Assistant:
"Will any one maintain that our Lord meant to contrast the life his gospel
is calculated to impart, and the kingdom he came to establish, with the literal
horrors of the valley of Hinnom? I think not. Every one it appears to me must
see the horrors of this place are used only as figures; and the question at
once arises-Figures of what? I answer-Figures of the consequences of sin, of
neglect of duty, of violation of God's law. And these figures are not used
so much to represent the duration of punishment, as to indicate its intensity,
and its uninterrupted, unmitigated continuous character so long as it lasts,
which must be as long as its cause continues, i.e., sin in the soul." Dr. Ballou says in Vol. 1,
Universalist Quarterly: "This passage is metaphorical. Jesus uses this
well-known example of a most painful sacrifice for the preservation of
corporeal life, only that he may the more strongly enforce a corresponding
solicitude to preserve the moral life of the soul.And if so, it naturally
follows that those prominent particulars in the passages which literally relate
to the body, are to be understood as figures, and interpreted accordingly. If
one's eye or hand become to him an offense, or cause of danger, it is better to
part with it than to let it corrupt the body fit to be thrown into the valley
of Hinnom. . . . It is better to deny ourselves everything however innocent and
even valuable in itself, if it become an occasion of sin, lest it should be the
means of bringing upon us the most dreadful consequences-consequences that are
aptly represented in the figure by having one's dishonored and putrid corpse
thrown into the accursed valley of Hinnom."
DESTROY SOUL AND BODY IN HELL "And fear not them which
kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is
able to destroy both soul and body in Hell. Matt. 10: 28. "But I will
forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath power
to cast into Hell: yea, I say unto you, fear him." Luke 12: 5. The reader
of these verses and the accompanying language, will observe that Jesus is
exhorting his disciples to have entire faith in God. The most that men can do
is to destroy the body, but God "is able," "hath power" to
destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. It is not said that God has any
disposition or purpose of doing so. He is able to do it, as it is said (Matt.
3: 9) he is "able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."
He never did and never will raise up children to Abraham of the stones of the
street, but he is able to, just as he is able to destroy soul and body in
Gehenna, while men could only destroy the body there. Fear the might power of
God who could if he chose, annihilate man while the worst that men could do
would be to destroy the mere animal life. It is a forcible exhortation to trust
in God, and has no reference to torment after death. Fear not those who can
only torture you-man-but fear God who can annihilate (apokteino.) 1. This language was addressed
by Christ to his disciples, and not to sinners. 2. It proves God's ability to
annihilate (destroy) and not his purpose to torment. Donnegan defines apollumi,
"to destroy utterly." Says a writer in the Universalist
Expositor, (Vol. 4): "That it was the design of Christ, to lead his
disciples to reverence the surpassing power of God, which he thus illustrated,
and not to make them fear an actual destruction of their souls and bodies in
Gehenna, seems evident from the words that immediately follow. For he proceeds
to show words that immediately follow. For he proceeds to show them that that
power was constantly exerted in their behalf- not against them. See the
following verses." The word rendered soul is
psuche, life, same as in verse 39, "He that findeth his life shall lose
it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Also, John 13:
37, "I will lay down my life for thy sake." The word psuche is
translated "mind," "soul," "life,"
"hear," "minds," and "souls." "And made
their minds (psuche)evil affected against the brethren." Acts 14: 2:
"Doing the will of God from the heart," (psuche). Eph. 6: 6:
"Learn of me. . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (psuche).
Matt. 11: 29: "Let every soul (psuche) be subject unto the higher
powers." Rom. 13: 1. The immortal soul is not meant, but the life. As
though Jesus had said: "Fear Not those who can only kill the body, but
rather him, who if he chose could annihilate the whole being." Fear not
man but God. "So much may suffice to show the admitted fact, that the
destruction of soul and body was a proverbial phrase, indicating utter
extinction or complete destruction." Paige. Dr. W. E. Manley observes that
the condition threatened "Is one wherein the body can be killed. And no
one has imagined any such place, outside the present state of being. Nor can
there be the least doubt about the nature of this killing of the body; for the
passage is so constructed as to settle this question beyond all controversy. It
is taking away the natural life as was done by the persecutors of the apostles.
The Jews were in a condition of depravity properly represented by Gehenna. The
apostles had been in that condition, but had been delivered from it. They were
in danger, however, of apostasy which would bring them again into the same
condition in which they would lose their natural lives and suffer moral death
besides. By supposing the term Hell to denote a condition now in the present
life, there is no absurdity involved. Sinful men may here suffer both natural
death and moral death; but in the future life natural death cannot be suffered;
whatever may be said of moral death. Add to this that the Jews used Gehenna as
an emblem of a temporal condition, at the time of Christ; but there is no
evidence that they used it to represent future punishment. That they did has many times
been asserted but never proved. In conclusion, the meaning of this passage may
be stated in few words. Fear not men, your persecutors, who can inflict on you
only bodily suffering. But rather fear him who is able to inflict both bodily
suffering, and what is worse, mental and moral suffering, in that condition of
depravity represented by the foulest and most revolting locality known to the
Jewish people." Dr. Parkhurst observes
Hell-fire, literally Gehenna of fire, does "in its outward and primary
sense, relate to that dreadful doom of being burnt alive in the valley of
Hinnom." Schleusner: "Any severe punishment, especially a shameful
kind of death was denominated Gehenna."
THE CHILD OF HELL "Woe unto you, Scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and
when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of Hell than
yourselves." Matt. 23: 15. Looking upon the smoking valley and thinking of
its corruptions and abominations to call a man a "child of
"Gehenna" was to say that his heart was corrupt and his character
vile, but it no more indicated a place of woe after death than a resident of
New York would imply such a place by calling a bad man a child of Five Points.
THE DAMNATION OF HELL "Ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" Matt. 23: 33. This
verse undoubtedly refers to the literal destruction that soon after befell the
Jewish nation, when six hundred thousand experienced literally the condemnation
of Gehenna, by perishing miserably by fire and sword. The next words explain
this damnation: "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise
men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them
ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood
of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew
between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall
come upon this generation." This was long before prophesied
by Jeremiah, (chapter 19): "Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the
Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord's house,
and said to all the people, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
Behold, I will bring upon this city, and upon all her towns, all the evil that
I have pronounced against it; because they have hardened their necks, that they
might not hear my words." Isaiah has reference to the same in chapter 66:
24: "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that
have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their
fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." This
explains the "unquenchable fire" and the "undying worm."
They are in this world.
SET ON FIRE OF HELL "And the tongue is a fire,
a world of iniquity; so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the
whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of
Hell." James 3: 6. A tongue set on fire of Gehenna when James wrote was
understood just as in London a tongue inspired by Billingsgate, or in New York
by Five Points, or in Boston by Ann street, or in Chicago by Fifth Avenue would
be understood, namely, a profane and vulgar tongue. No reference whatever was
had to any after-death place of torment but the allusion was solely to a
locality well-known to all Jews, as a place of corruption and it was
figuratively and properly applied to a vile tongue.
CONCLUSION We have thus briefly explained
all the passages in which Gehenna occurs. Is there any intimation that it
denotes a place of punishment after death? Not any. If it mean such a place no
one can escape believing that it is a place of literal fire, and all the modern
talk of a Hell of conscience is most erroneous. But that it has no such meaning
is corroborated by the testimony of Paul who says he "shunned not to
declare the whole counsel of God," and yet he never in all his writings
employs the word once, nor does he use the word Hadees but once and then he
signifies its destruction, "oh Hadees, where is thy victory?" If Paul
believed in a place of endless torment, would he have been utterly silent in
reference to it, in his entire ministry? His reticence is a demonstration that
he had no faith in it though the Jews and heathen all around him preached it
and believed it implicitly. A careful reading of the Old
Testament shows that the vale of Hinnom was a well-known and repulsive valley
near Jerusalem, and an equally careful reading of the New Testament teaches
that Gehenna, or Hinnom's vale was explained as always in this world, (Jer. 12:
29-34; 19: 4-15; Matt. 10: 28), and was to befall the sinners of that
generation, (Matt. 24) in this life, (Matt. 10: 39), before the disciples had
gone over the cities of Israel, (Matt. 10: 23), and that their bodies and souls
were exposed to its calamities. It was only used in the New Testament on five
occasions, either too few, or else modern ministers use it altogether too much.
John who wrote for Gentiles and Paul who was the great apostle to the Gentiles
never used it once nor did Peter. If it had a local application and meaning we
can understand this, but if it were the name of the receptacle of damned souls
to all eternity, it would be impossible to explain such inconsistency. The
primary meaning then of Gehenna is the well-known locality near Jerusalem; but
it was sometimes used to denote the consequences of sin in this life. It is to
be understood in these two senses only in all the twelve passages in the New
Testament. In the second century after Christ it came to denote a place of
torment after death, but it is never employed in that sense in the Old
Testament, the New Testament, the Apocrypha nor was it used by any contemporary
of Christ with that meaning, nor was it ever thus employed by any Christian
until Justin and Clement thus used it (A. D. 150) (and the latter was a
Universalist), nor by any Jew until in the targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel about
a century later. And even then it only denoted future but did not denote
endless punishment, until a still later period. The English author, Charles
Kingsley writes (Letters) to a friend: "The doctrine occurs nowhere in the
Old Testament, nor any hint of it. The expression in the end of Isaiah about
the fire not quenched and the worm not dying is plainly of the dead corpses of
men upon the physical earth in the valley of Hinnom or Gehenna, where the offal
of Jerusalem was burned perpetually. "The doctrine of endless torment was
as a historical fact, brought back from Babylon by the Rabbis. It may be a very
ancient primary doctrine of the Magi, an appendage of their fire-kingdom of
Ahriman and may be found in the old Zends, long prior to Christianity.
"St. Paul accepts nothing of it as far as we can tell never making the
least allusion to the doctrine. "The apocalypse simply repeats the imagery
of Isaiah, and of our Lord; but asserts distinctly the non-endlessness of
torture, declaring that in the consummation, not only death but Hell shall be
cast into the lake of fire. "The Christian Church has
never held it exclusively till now. It remained quite an open question till the
age of Justinian, 530, and significantly enough, as soon as 200 years before
that, endless torment for the heathen became a popular theory, purgatory sprang
up synchronously by the side of it, as a relief for the conscience and reason
of the church." Canon Farrar truthfully says, in
his "Eternal Hope": "And, finally, the word rendered Hell is in
one place the Greek word 'Tartarus,' borrowed as a word for the prison of evil
spirits not after but before the resurrection. It is in ten places 'Hadees,'
which simply means the world beyond the grave, and it is twelve places
'Gehenna,' which means primarily, the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem in
which after it had been polluted by Moloch worship, corpses were flung and
fires were lit; and, secondly, it is a metaphor not of final and hopeless but
of that purifying and corrective punishment which as we all believe does await
impenitent sin both here and beyond the grave. But be it solemnly observed, the
Jews to whom and in whose metaphorical sense the word was used by our blessed
Lord, never did, either then or at any other period attach to that word
'Gehenna,' which he used, that meaning of endless torment which we have been
taught to apply to Hell. To them and therefore on the lips of our blessed
Savior who addressed it to them, it means not a material and everlasting fire,
but an intermediate, a metaphorical and a terminal retribution." In Excursus II, "Eternal
Hope," he says the "damnation of Hell is the very different
"judgment of Gehenna;" and Hell-fire is the "Gehenna of
fire," "an expression which on Jewish lips was never applied in our
Lord's days to endless torment. Origen tells us (c. Celsus 6: 25) that finding
the word Gehenna in the Gospels for the place of punishment, he made a special
search into its meaning and history; and after mentioning (1) the Valley of
Hinnom, and (2) a purificatory fire (eis teen meta basanon katharsin,) he
mysteriously adds that he thinks it unwise to speak without reserve about his
discoveries. No one reading the passage can doubt that he means to imply the
use of the word 'Gehenna' among the Jews to indicate a terminable, and not an
endless punishment." The English word Hell occurs in
the Bible fifty-five times, thirty-two in the Old Testament and twenty-three in
the New Testament. The original terms translated Hell, Sheol-Hadees occur in
the Old Testament sixty-four times and in the New Testament twenty-four times; Hadees eleven times, Gehenna twelve times and Tartarus once. In every instance
the meaning is death, the grave or the consequences of sin in this life. Thus the word Hell in the Bible,
whether translated from Sheol, Hadees, Gehenna, or Tartarus, yields no
countenance to the doctrine of even future, much less endless punishment. It should
not be concluded, however, from our expositions of the usage of the word Hell,
in the Bible, that Universalists deny that the consequences of sin extend to
the life beyond the grave. We deny that inspiration has named Hell as a place
or condition of punishment in the spirit world. It seems a philosophical
conclusion and there are Scriptures that appear to many Universalists to teach
that the future life is affected to a greater or less extent, by human conduct
here; but that Hell is a place or condition of suffering after death is not
believed by any and as we trust we have shown, the Scriptures never so
designate it. Sheol, Hadees and Tartarus denoted literal death or the
consequences of sin here, and Gehenna was the name of a locality well-known to
all Jews into which sometimes men were cast and was made an emblem of great
calamities or sufferings resulting from sin. Hell in the Bible in all the
fifty-five instances in which the word occurs always refers to the present and
never to the immortal world.
Quoted Statements is the host website to the following domains owned by me [Stephen Robinson] for the purpose of promoting primitive Christianity:
Note: Universal salvation is not scriptural because repentance is impossible for some (Hebrews 6:4-6) and although God has no pleasure in death of wicked (Ezekiel 33:11; 18:32), God's love cannot condone unrighteousness (Hebrew 1:9) and the Bible states that the Wicked will be destroyed (Hebrews 10:26-29; Revelations 20:7-15).
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